5.3 Language Acquisition and Development

Language acquisition is a fascinating journey that begins at birth. Babies start with cooing and babbling, progressing to their first words around 10-15 months. By 18 months, they're using single words to convey complex ideas, known as holophrases.

As toddlers grow, they move into the two-word stage, combining words to form simple phrases. This leads to telegraphic speech, where they use short sentences to express essential meanings. Throughout this process, children's vocabulary and grammatical understanding rapidly expand.

Early Stages of Language Development

Prelinguistic Communication

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• Prelinguistic stage occurs from birth to around 12 months and involves non-verbal communication
• Cooing emerges around 2-3 months and consists of vowel-like sounds that express contentment or discomfort (ah, eh, oh)
• Babbling begins around 6 months and involves combining consonants and vowels in repetitive syllables (bababa, mamama)
• Babbling becomes more complex and varied as infants approach their first birthday, resembling the sounds and intonation patterns of their native language

First Words and Holophrases

• First words typically emerge between 10-15 months and often refer to important people, objects, or events in the child's life (mama, dada, ball)
• Holophrase stage occurs around 12-18 months when children use single words to convey complex meanings or ideas
• Holophrases rely heavily on context and intonation to communicate the child's intent (saying "up" to request being picked up or pointing to a toy and saying "mine")
• Children's vocabulary grows rapidly during this stage, with an average of 50-100 words by 18 months and 200-300 words by 24 months

Language Acquisition Theories and Concepts

Innate Language Abilities

• Language acquisition device (LAD) is a hypothetical innate mechanism proposed by Noam Chomsky that enables children to acquire language rapidly and effortlessly
• LAD is thought to contain universal grammar, a set of rules and principles common to all human languages that guide language acquisition
• Motherese, also known as infant-directed speech, is a simplified, exaggerated, and repetitive form of speech that caregivers naturally use with infants and toddlers
• Motherese features higher pitch, slower pace, shorter phrases, and exaggerated intonation, which may help infants identify and process language patterns

Language Learning Processes

• Overextension occurs when children apply a word to a broader category than is appropriate (calling all four-legged animals "doggie")
• Underextension happens when children use a word too narrowly, applying it only to a specific instance or context (using "car" only for the family car)
• Fast mapping is the ability to rapidly learn and retain new word meanings after minimal exposure, often requiring only one or two instances of hearing the word in context
• Critical period hypothesis suggests that there is an optimal window for language acquisition, typically from birth to puberty, after which language learning becomes more difficult

Later Stages of Language Development

Two-Word Stage

• Two-word stage emerges around 18-24 months when children begin combining words to form simple phrases or sentences
• Two-word utterances often omit function words (articles, prepositions) and focus on content words (nouns, verbs) that convey the main idea ("daddy go," "more milk")
• Children's two-word combinations follow consistent word order patterns that reflect the rules of their native language (in English, "more cookie" instead of "cookie more")
• Two-word stage marks the beginning of grammatical development as children start to express semantic relationships (possession, location, action-object) through word combinations

Telegraphic Speech

• Telegraphic speech occurs around 24-30 months and is characterized by short, simple sentences that convey essential meaning
• Telegraphic utterances often omit function words, inflections, and other grammatical elements, focusing on content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives)
• Examples of telegraphic speech include "daddy go work," "doggie eat bone," "mommy give milk"
• Despite their simplicity, telegraphic utterances follow the basic word order and grammatical rules of the child's native language
• Telegraphic speech reflects children's growing understanding of language structure and their ability to express increasingly complex ideas with limited vocabulary and grammatical knowledge