What was the first word you learned? What types of words would you expect children to
learn first? Rachel’s first words:• Jasper• Socks• Daddy• Shoes• Juice• Bye-bye• More• Hello• ball
• Hiya• No• Yes• Please• Bot-bot• My• Toast• Marmite• jam
• Nana• Grandad• ta• poo• book• duck• Quack quack• Woof• hot
Stages of development …
• NB: Children do not all develop at the same pace.
• However: Children all around the world do pass through the same set of stages. There is a universal pattern of development, regardless of the language being acquired.
Before birth …
• Evidence suggests that even in the womb, the growing baby acclimatises to the sounds of its native language.
• Mehler 1988: French new born babies were able to distinguish French from other languages.
Crying …
• First few weeks: child expresses itself vocally through crying.
• Signals hunger, distress or pleasure.
• Instinctive noise (so not language).
Cooing …
• Also known as gurgling or mewing.
• 6-8 weeks old.• ‘Coo’, ‘ga-ga’ and
‘goo’.• Child develops
increasing control over vocal chords.
Babbling …
• Most important stage in the first year.
• 6-9 months old.• Sounds begin to
resemble adult sounds more closely.
Babbling …
• Consonant and vowel combinations: ‘ba’, ‘ma’ and ‘da’.
• Bilabial sounds most common (i.e. using the lips).
• When these sounds are repeated = reduplicated monosyllable.
Babbling …
• These sounds have no meaning.
• Baby makes far more noise than before.
• Exercises and experiments with its articulators (parts of the body that make sounds).
Phonemic expansion …
• Phoneme: smallest element of sound in a language that can display contrast and hence change meaning or function of a word, e.g. initial sounds in ban and Dan.
• During babbling, number of different phonemes produced increases (expands).
Phonemic contraction …
• 9-10 months.• Number of phonemes
produced reduces to those found in the native language (contracts).
• Baby discards sounds not required.
Phonemic contraction …
• Evidence: noises made by children of different nationalities starts to sound different.
• Experiments: native adults have successfully identified babies from own country.
Intonation …
• Intonation patterns begin to resemble speech.
• Common: rising intonation at end of utterance.
• Other variations in rhythm/emphasis may suggest greeting or calling.
Gesture …
• Although they do not yet have the power of speech, desire to communicate indicated through gesture.
• Example: point to object and use facial expression, ‘What’s that?’.
• Beginnings of pragmatic development (i.e. recognising that social context affects meaning).
Understanding …
• Although child may not begin to speak, they might understand meanings of certain words.
• Word recognition: usually evident by end of first year.
• Common: names, ‘no’ and ‘bye-bye’.
Holophrastic stage• Single word utterances e.g. teddy, mamma etc
• 60% of children’s first utterances are nouns e.g. ball, dog, etc. Nelson found that these are often the names of objects which are small and easily handled by a child, or things that make a noise e.g. car
• Nelson (1973) identified three other categories including: Actions / events e.g. cuddle, jump, Describing / modifying words e.g. more, two, Personal / social words e.g. hiya, wassat
Due to limited number of words, children may make mistakes e.g. Underextension and overextension
Two-word Stage
• At around 18 months babies begin to combine words to form two-word utterances
• Although their sentences are not complete, the syntax is usually correct
• Utterances focus on key words, dropping function words
• Inflection is used to get meaning across e.g. How many different ways can you say ‘my car’ to give it different meanings?
Telegraphic Stage
• 3 and 4 word utterances begin to be produced
• Some will be grammatically correct, others will miss out grammatical elements
• Like a telegram, key words are used
• A wider range of structures are formed e.g. Interrogatives, commands and simple statements
Post-telegraphic stage
• Children make rapid progress
• Their vocabulary widens considerably
• By 5 years most of the basic grammatical rules have been learned, although some take longer e.g. The passive
• More than one clause appears