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Overview of Speech and Language Development Stages

• Human speech and language development spans five main developmental periods from birth through early adolescence:

  • 1. Prelinguistic to toddlerhood period (birth to 18 months)

  • 2. Emerging language period (19 to 35 months)

  • 3. Developing language period (3 to 5 years)

  • 4. Middle childhood period (6 to 8 years)

  • 5. School-age to early-adolescence period (9 to 12 years)

Prelinguistic to Toddlerhood Period (Birth to 18 Months)

• The prelinguistic to toddlerhood period encompasses five major stages of vocalization and initial word acquisition:

  • Cooing sounds:

  • Production of vowel-like sounds.

• Babbling:

  • Production of consonant-vowel (CV) syllables.

  • Divided into two distinct categories:

    • Canonical babbling:

    • Also known as reduplicated babbling.

    • Characterized by producing a sequence of the same repeated syllables.

    • Examples: "dadadada", "mamamamama".

  * Variegated babbling:
    * Also known as non-reduplicated babbling.
    * Characterized by producing a sequence of different syllables.
    * Examples: "wabawaba", "yebeyebe".

• Jargon speech:

  • Production of vocal strings that resemble actual words or sentences in intonation and rhythm, but are not real words.

• First words:

  • Emergence of true single words.

  • Representative examples: "Mama", "Dada", "Dog", "Ball", "Hi", "Bye", "Cat".

• Expansion of expressive lexicon:

  • Vocabulary reaches a benchmark of 50 single words.

  • Early functional vocabulary includes: mommy, car, milk, birthday, he, that, go, look, big, red, mine, want, please, ouch, what, where, for, is.

First 50 Words Lexicon and Empirical Case Studies

• Empirical Source Citation:

  • "Patterns of Early Lexical and Phonological Development" by C. Stoel-Gammon and J. Cooper (1984), Journal of Child Language, Volume 11, pages 247–271 (Cambridge University Press).

• Case Study 1: Daniel (Age range: 12–16 months)

  • Sequence of first 50 single words produced:

  1. light, 2. uh-oh, 3. wha that, 4. wow, 5. banana, 6. kitty, 7. baby, 8. moo, 9. quack, 10. cookie, 11. nice, 12. rock, 13. clock, 14. sock, 15. woof-woof, 16. daddy, 17. bubble, 18. hi, 19. shoe, 20. up, 21. bye-bye, 22. bottle, 23. no, 24. rocky, 25. eye, 26. nose, 27. fire, 28. hot, 29. yoghourt, 30. pee-pee, 31. juice, 32. ball, 33. wack-wack, 34. frog, 35. hello, 36. yuk, 37. aoole, 38. Big Bird, 39. walk, 40. Ernie, 41. horse, 42. more, 43. mommy, 44. bunny, 45. my, 46. nut, 47. orange, 48. block, 49. nite-nite, 50. milk.

• Case Study 2: Will (Age range: 11–16 months)

  • Sequence of first 50 single words produced:

  1. baby, 2. mommy, 3. doggie, 4. juice, 5. bye-bye, 6. daddy, 7. milk, 8. cracker, 9. done, 10. ball, 11. shoe, 12. teddy, 13. book, 14. kitty, 15. hi, 16. Alex, 17. no (no), 18. door, 19. dolly, 20. wha tha, 21. cheese, 22. oh wow, 23. oh, 24. button, 25. eye, 26. apple, 27. nose, 28. bird, 29. alldone, 30. orange, 31. bottle, 32. coat, 33. hot, 34. bib, 35. hat, 36. more, 37. ear, 38. nite-nite, 39. paper, 40. toast, 41. O'Toole, 42. bath, 43. down, 44. duck, 45. leaf, 46. cookie, 47. lake, 48. car, 49. rock, 50. box.

• Case Study 3: Sarah (Age range: 12–19 months)

  • Sequence of first 50 single words produced:

  1. uh-oh, 2. alldone, 3. light, 4. down, 5. shoes, 6. baby, 7. don't throw, 8. moo, 9. bite, 10. three, 11. hi, 12. cheese, 13. up, 14. quack-quack, 15. oink-oink, 16. coat, 17. beep-beep, 18. keys, 19. cycle, 20. mama, 21. daddy, 22. siren sound, 23. grr, 24. more, 25. off, 26. ticktock, 27. ball, 28. go, 29. bump, 30. pop-pop = fire, 31. out, 32. hee-haw, 33. eat, 34. neigh, 35. meow, 36. sit, 37. woof-woof, 38. bah, 39. hoo-hoo = owl, 40. bee, 41. tree, 42. mi-mi = ferry, 43. ss = snake, 44. ooh-ooh = monkey, 45. yack-yack = talk, 46. hohoho = Santa, 47. bye bye, 48. doll, 49. kite, 50. Muriel.

Emerging Language Period (19 to 35 Months)

• Major linguistic characteristics and expressive capabilities:

  • Multi-word combinations: Combines two or more words together (e.g., "more water", "go outside").

  • Word and phrase repetitions: Re-repeats words or phrases in sentence formation (e.g., "baby – baby – baby sit down", "I want – I want juice").

  • Present progressive tense: Utilizes "-ing" verbs (e.g., "eating", "running").

  • Regular past tense suffixation: Appends "-ed" to the end of verbs to describe past actions (e.g., "looked", "played").

Developing Language Period (3 to 5 Years)

• Major linguistic characteristics and expressive capabilities:

  • Location terminology: Comprehends and utilizes prepositions and spatial terms (e.g., "inside", "on", "under").

  • Use of articles: Integrates articles such as "a" or "the" in conversational speech (e.g., "a book", "the dog").

  • Irregular plurals: Employs at least one irregular plural form correctly (e.g., "feet", "men").

  • Temporal concepts: Uses time-oriented vocabulary accurately (e.g., "yesterday", "tomorrow").

  • Blending morphemes: Blends two free morphemes together to construct compound words (e.g., "cup" + "cake" = "cupcake").

Middle Childhood Period (6 to 8 Years)

• Major linguistic characteristics and expressive capabilities:

  • Complex syntactic structures: Begins implementing advanced grammatical structures, including passive voice constructions.

  • Morphological integration: Combines diverse morpheme types, including free and bound morphemes (e.g., blending the bound prefix "un-" with the free root word "able" to form "unable").

School-Age to Early-Adolescence Period (9 to 12 Years)

Major linguistic characteristics and expressive capabilities:

• Figurative language: Utilizes and interprets non-literal language forms.

• Definition of figurative language: Words or phrases that express meaningful concepts without being literally true.

• Example of figurative language: "time is money".