Stages of Language Development in Children

Language Development in Children

• Crying is the first form of language development in children, indicating their language ability.

Stage 1: 0-2 months

• Infants start cooing, producing vowel-like sounds, mainly "a" and "o" sounds (e.g., aaaaah, ooooooh).

Stage 2: 3-6 months

• Infants begin babbling, adding consonants to sounds, mainly using "a", "o", "e" vowels and "b", "m", "d", "t" consonants (e.g., maaaaaa, baaaaa, غاااااااا).

Stage 3: Beginning of 2nd year

• One-word utterances emerge, with a limited vocabulary of around 5 words (e.g., Ma, ba, da, bab bab bab).
• Infants develop a link between communication and sound-making signals, marking the onset of language.

Stage 4: 18 months olds

• A vocabulary explosion occurs, with children learning words at a faster rate (20-50 words).
• Overgeneralizations appear, where children use a single word to refer to multiple objects or people (e.g., baba for all men, mama for all women, dada for all children).

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

• Two-word utterances emerge, combining two nouns or a noun and a verb (e.g., dad go, mamy milk, go sleep).
• Telegraphic speech develops, with an abbreviated language style similar to a telegram.
• Overgeneralizations continue, and children start to use functional words like "the" and "and".
• Inflections are rare, and vocabulary is limited to the child's immediate environment.

Stage 6: Third year to beginning of 4th year

• Complete utterances emerge, with some conversational skills.
• Children's vocabulary expands, and they develop metalinguistic awareness (e.g., recognizing "bad words").
• Their language skills become more advanced, with a focus on the here-and-now environment.

Stage 7: 5-6 years

• Children possess the basic syntactic, semantic, phonological, and phonetic systems of their first language (L1).
• They achieve adult-like fluency and mastery of L1 knowledge.
• Conversational skills become more advanced, similar to those of adults.
• Metalinguistic awareness deepens and widens.

Stage 8: 7-13 years

• Children develop more complex, adult-like conversational skills.
• Their grammar and knowledge of L1 become more advanced and complex.
• They continue to refine their language skills, achieving a more sophisticated level of communication.

Learn about the stages of language development in children, from day 1 and beyond. Understand the language abilities of infants and how they develop over time.