Child Acquisition (Week 1)

Prelinguistic Stage (Stage 1)

the developmental phase before children begin to use words, characterized by babbling and non-verbal communication.

Babbling (Stage 2)

Experimenting with sounds

Holophrastic (one word) - Stage 3

the stage where a single word is used to express a complete thought or idea.

Two-word stage (Stage 4)

the stage in language development where two or more words are combined to convey more complex meanings.

Telephratic Stage (Stage 5)

Content words, but no grammar

Multi Word Stage (Stage 6)

the stage in language development where children begin to use multiple words in sentences, incorporating basic grammar and forming more complex structures.

Babbling

6-12 months

making vocal noises

blend of consonant and vowel sounds

making universal sounds, not based on the surroundings

babbling is innate (to all children)

Holophrastic

12-18 months

produce sounds that resemble words, as they discover sounds have meaning

can speak 50 words, but can understand more

holphrase

single word phrases that express thought

Two word phrase

18-24 months

mostly noun-verb combinations (eg. momma come)

only content words

gramar is slowly emerging

eg. “Dadda eat. Dadda go.”

Telegraphic Stage

24-30 months

Multi-word utterances

more than two content words

start to form simple questions

Multi word stage

30 months

more complex sentences

start to incorporate:

inflections

plural inflections

preposition use

Acquisition Of Phonology

play of sounds and experimentation with vocal cords, tongue and lips.

Consonant Clusters

How people pronounce two consonants together

eg. “fink” for “think”or "pwetty" for "pretty".

Acquisition Of Morphology

Present progressive

prepositions

plural inflections

irregular past tense forms

possessive inflections

various forms of the verb “be”

articles (an, a, the)

regular past tense inflection

regular present-tense inflection

irregular present tense forms

Acquisition Of Lexis

12-18 months: 500-100 words (most are nouns)

18-24 months: vocab explosion, begin to use verbs and adjectives

2-3 years: begin to use - pronouns, contractions, reflexive pronouns

3-4 years: use more sophisticated contractions, and more pronouns

Mean Length Of Utterance

“The more fluent and adept with language, the more longer the sentences.”

Wug Test

A linguistic experiment designed to investigate morphological awareness and children's ability to apply linguistic rules to unfamiliar words, typically involving the creation of plurals.

Semantic Overgeneralisation

A language development phenomenon where children apply a word too broadly, using a single term to describe multiple objects or concepts. (e.g. cat used to address dogs as well)

Semantic Undergeneralisation

A language development issue where children use a word too narrowly, applying it to fewer objects or concepts than it actually refers to. For example, using "dog" exclusively for their own pet but not for other dogs.