Child Language Acquisition: Speaking

Stages of vocal development -

·       Stage 1 ( 0-8 weeks) – basic biological noise, i.e. spluttering, reflexive noises

·       Stage 2 (8-20 weeks) – quiet musical noises, i.e. cooing and laughter. This teaches the child control of their vocal organ muscles as well as the importance of tongue movement.

·       Stage 3 ( 20-30 weeks) – vocal play, i.e. use of vowel/consonant like sounds, fricatives and nasal sounds

·       Stage 4 (25-50 weeks) – babbling/repetition of monosyllables, i.e. abababa, mamamama. The range of sounds uttered is more limited than that of stage 3 but they are said with more confidence.

·       Stage 5( 9-18 months) – melodic utterances, tone and rhythm of the child’s voice develops

·       Stage 6 – most children at 18 months have shown an ability to speak around 50 words; research however also shows that children can understand up to 250 words at this stage. Most children often start talking about their surroundings i.e. objects/people

·       Stage 7 – the child’s vocabulary usually develops to include around 200 words, overextension and under extension can also be seen at this stage.