Child Language Development Stages

Stages of Language Development in Children

Stage 1: 0-2 months

• Crying is an indication of language ability and the first form of language
• Infants produce vowel-like sounds, such as "aaaaah" and "oooooh", mainly using "a" and "o" sounds

Stage 2: 3-6 months

• Infants start babbling, adding consonants to sounds, producing sounds like "maaaaa", "baaaaa", and "غاااااااا"
• Mainly uses "a", "o", and "e" vowels and "b", "m", "d", and "t" consonants

Stage 3: Beginning of 2nd year

• Infants develop a link between communication and sound-making signals, marking the onset of language
• One-word utterances emerge, such as "Ma" (ma), "ba" (ba), "da" (da), and "bab bab bab"
• Limited vocabulary of around 5 words

Stage 4: 18 months

• Vocabulary explosion/spurt, with a rapid increase in learning words (20-50 words)
• Overgeneralizations occur, such as using "baba" to refer to all men, "mama" to refer to all women, and "dada" to refer to all children

Stage 5: Just before end of 2nd year and beginning of 3rd year

• Two-word utterances emerge, such as "dad go", "mamy milk", and "go sleep"
• Telegraphic speech (abbreviated language) is used
• Overgeneralizations continue, such as using "mama halawa" and "sakr bab"
• Limited inflections and a focus on the here-and-now environment

Stage 6: Third year to beginning of 4th year

• Complete utterances are used
• Some conversational skills are developed
• Wider here-and-now skills are acquired
• Metalinguistic awareness emerges, such as recognizing "bad words"
• More vocabulary items are learned

Stage 7: 5-6 years

• The child possesses the basic syntactic, semantic, phonological, and phonetic systems of L1
• Adult-like fluency and good mastery of L1 knowledge are achieved
• Conversational skills similar to those of adults are developed
• Deeper and wider metalinguistic awareness is achieved

Stage 8: 7-13 years

• Development of more complex, adult-like conversational skills
• Advanced and complex grammar and knowledge of L1 are acquired