A Child's Language Journey

By facebooker_10205119436216971

  • ~2 months

    Infants coo and make pleasant vowel sounds.

  • ~3 months

    Child may begin babbling, bringing hands to the mouth, and smiling.

  • ~6 months

    -Infants continue to babble and add consonants to cooing sounds. They may also repeat syllables. At 7 months, babbling may evolve into many sounds of spoken language. Infants can also begin to understand few common words.

  • ~8-12 months

    Infants become more accurate at making interaction with the adult. The caregiver at this time should label things the child looks at. Preverbal gestures are used (showing, pointing) to influence goals and behaviors and provide information.

  • ~12 months

    Babbling turns into sound and intonation patterns of child's language community. The speed and accuracy of word comprehension improves. At this time, toddlers say their first word.

  • ~1-2 years

    Spoken vocabulary expands from 50-200-250 words and toddlers are now able to combine words.

  • ~2-3 years

    The child may know as many as 200+ words by now, including a variety of verbs. The child can have conversations about describing environments around him/her. Question words like 'what,' 'when,' and 'where' will be prevalent. Three to five word sentences are expected.

  • ~3-4 Years

    Child may attempt to add '-d' to the end of verbs to create past-tense terminology. Talking about the future is expected, as well. Plural word creations are established by using '-s' at the end of words. Word count may vary from 800-1,000. Four to six word sentences are expected.

  • ~4-5 Years

    Child pays attention to a short story and answers simple questions about it, hears and understands most of what is said at home and in school, communicates easily with other children and adults, says most sounds correctly except for a few (l, s, r, v, z, ch, sh, and th), and utilizes adult grammar.

  • ~6-10 Years

    Child may have a vocabulary count of over 13,000 words. Complex thinking is progressed and the ability to use and understand language improves. Child will gradually advance from understanding simple sentences to being able to interpret complicated content within a paragraph. "Present" thinking is still highly focused on. Language is still understood as literal. Around age 10, children develop an understanding of multiple meanings and relationships between words (example: metaphors).

  • ~12 Years and Older

    A child will be able to use language effectively for a variety of purposes/situations, give directions, summarize, explain relationships between words, use abstract and specific grammar, give synonyms, add prefixes and suffixes to words, understand figurative language, form opinions, find purposes, understand idioms... etc...