We as caregivers are very excited as we await our young children to begin communicating with us, it is usually a big step for every child and also for the parent. language development in children is a milestone.
below are the stages
Stage 1: Crying (birth- 8 weeks)
• The first vocalization made by an infant at birth is a cry.
• An infant will cry in a different way when wet, hungry, thirsty ,lonely, stressed ,threatened and uncomfortable
• Sensitive mothers are able to interpret their babies cry according to their needs.
Stage 2: Cooing (8-20 weeks)
Infants begin to produce other sounds at different pitch this marks the cooing stage.
It Mostly involve repetition of vowel sounds e.g. aaaaa, eeeee, ooooo, iiiii, uuuuu
During cooing, the child begins to manipulate their tongue and mouth inproducing sounds
Caregivers should encourage infants to coo more.
Stage 3: Vocal play (gurgling)-16-30 weeks
• This is a quiet, pleasant and repetitive vocalization
• It is characterized by contnious production of consonant like sound varried vowels and nasal sounds like /m//h/
• They produce sounds like: gee, ghhh
• A child at this language stage is seen to explore intonation, stress, repetition and to be playing with his vocals
Stage 4: Babbling (25-30weeks)
• In this stage infants produces repetitive syllable such as: ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma etc.
• This is the first vocalization that resembles human speech.
• As children pull themselves into standing positions they become capable of using vocalisations to express emotions.
• The late babbling stage is characterized by more complex syllable combinations (ma-da-ga-ba)
• Adults should respond positively to improve babbling.
A. LINGUISTIC STAGE
• It happens when the child is able to use words. And the words spoken are those words spoken by an adult e.g Nouns
• Stage one: The one Word Stage (9-13 months)
• The first words produced are usually nouns in which single terms are uttered for everyday objects like: Milk, Spoon, Cat or utter names like: Mum
• For example: Baba my mean: Father, the seat of a father, the coat of a father
• The word may also stand in place of question, statement, command.
• For example: a child may utter milk to mean may I have some milk
• This stage is also called holophrastic stage meaning a single form functioning as a phrase or a sentence.
Stage two Telegraphic stage (30 weeks)
• Children combine words into primitive sentences.
• These sentences are not grammatically correct, they lack articles, prepositions, conjunctions e.g. mama milk, baba home, Jane school teacher, dada come food.
• These statements carry an extended meaning e.g. mama milk may mean Mum I want milk or Mum milk is pouring down.
• These sentences are called telegraphic sentences since they are similar to telegram sentences which lack some words.
• Adults receiving the message have to fill some words to understand the meanings.
Stage 6: Symbolic language stage (2-5 years)
• The young child gains the ability to mentally represent the object that is not present.
• The child is able to link the word’ cup’ with the object (cup), he is able to talk about the cup in its absence
• The association of specific words (labels) with objects and actions in their environment is known as the process of symbol formation
• Gestures will be used in place of words to refer to objects, actions, events/ requests
Stage 7: Socialized language (5-6 years)
• It is the language involving interaction with other children or peers. The language is in the socio-cultural context of a child’s exposure.
• The child’s language has expanded grammatically and they tend to acquire most of the adult language
• Children seem to be more interested with each other as they play and communicate.
Stage 8: Adult language (6-8 years)
• A child’s language follows the same route as that of a grown up. The child here has to socialize in the use of language and is ready to join elementary school.
• Speech is more or less similar to those of adults they have more vocabulary and children are more creative.
• A child makes deliberate efforts to avoid making mistakes in the sound, form, meaning and use of langauge
