stages of child language acquisition

Producing strings of consonant-vowel sounds like "ba-ba-ba"

Babbling

Using a single word to represent an entire complex thought or sentence

Holophrastic

A vocabulary explosion usually occurring around 18 months

Two-word utterances

The use of "proto-words" that have meaning to the child but aren't actual words

Babbling

Sentences that consist mainly of nouns and verbs, lacking grammatical markers

Telegraphic

"Goo-goo" and "ga-ga" sounds with no specific meaning

Babbling

A child says "Juice" to mean "I want some juice"

Holophrastic

Using two words together with a clear syntactic relationship like "Doggie bark"

Two-word utterances

Frequent use of pivot words like "allgone" or "more" followed by a noun

Two-word utterances

Speech that sounds like a text message or a telegram

Telegraphic

The stage typically occurring between 6 and 12 months

Babbling

The stage typically occurring between 12 and 18 months

Holophrastic

The stage typically occurring between 18 and 24 months

Two-word utterances

The stage typically occurring between 24 and 30+ months

Telegraphic

Reduplicated sounds where the same syllable is repeated

Babbling

The first appearance of basic Subject-Verb or Verb-Object structures

Two-word utterances

Child uses "Up" to mean "Pick me up, please"

Holophrastic

Omission of function words like "the," "is," and "of"

Telegraphic

Variegated sounds where different consonants and vowels are mixed

Babbling

High reliance on context and gestures to convey meaning

Holophrastic

"Mummy sit" used to describe an action

Two-word utterances

Emergence of some inflectional morphemes like "-ing" toward the end of the phase

Telegraphic

Intonation patterns beginning to mimic the native language without real words

Babbling

"No bed" to express resistance or negation

Two-word utterances

"Cat" used to identify a cat, ask for a cat, or mention a cat is leaving

Holophrastic

Essential content words are present but "grammatical glue" is missing

Telegraphic