Language Acquisition Overview

Comparing groups of children of different ages to study language development.

Studying children over a long time to track language development.

The period before a child starts speaking words.

Vowel sounds like 'ooooo' (associated with pleasure), typically starting around 2 months old.

Combining vowels and consonants ('ba', 'pa'), a major part of infant vocalization (6 months+).

Repeating babbling sounds with speech-like intonation (around 10 months).

Understanding spoken language.

Producing spoken language.

Predictable stages all children go through in learning language, regardless of language or culture.

Differences in how quickly or how children learn language influenced by biological, social and cultural factors.

Development of communication skills in infants.

Children use single words, often approximations. Consistency is key.

Rapid increase in the number of words learned, typically between 16-18 months.

Common names of objects; most frequent in children's early vocabularies.

Specific names of people or animals, like pet names.

Words describing actions, like 'look' or 'eat'.

Using single words to express multiple meanings in different contexts.

Children start combining words into two-word sentences. Syntax (grammar) development begins.

Average number of words in a child's spoken sentences.

Initial stage of learning grammatical rules for combining words.

Characterized by short, simple sentences (2-3 words) using essential words like nouns, verbs, and adjectives; lasts approximately 18-30 months.

Using only essential words in a sentence, omitting less crucial words.

A period of rapid grammatical development around age 30 months, with increased sentence length by adding inflections and function words.

Applying grammatical rules to irregular words, seen in early grammar development.

Changes in the form of a word to indicate grammatical aspects like tense, number or case

The process by which children learn how combinations of sounds refer to objects or actions.

Children use more words in sentences when they reach preschool age.

Children use conjunctions ('and', 'but') and more complex sentence forms by preschool age.

Sentence structures where the object of the action is emphasized, rather than the actor.

Words refer to things, not other aspects of the scene or context. This principle is closely linked to the initial assumption that a word refers to only one class of objects.

Words represent a class of objects rather than a single, specific instance. It means 'dog' refers to all dogs, not just one.

Words refer to the entire object, not just its parts. For example, 'dog' refers to the whole animal, not just its tail.

Children initially believe that each word applies to only one class of objects. For example, they assume 'dog' refers only to the animal, not to a stick.

A communication skill children develop around 18 months of age, where they learn to take turns speaking and listen to others.

The study of how language is used in real-world contexts to communicate effectively.

Children actively associate words with objects and make assumptions about their meanings, rather than passively learning through mere exposure.

There's evidence that children either develop a concept about a category first and then learn its word, or learn the word and then apply it to a category.

A child tries to make sense of the new label by associating it with the whole object and assuming it only refers to that class of objects, not parts or other things in the scene.