LANGUAGE

DEVELOPMENT
Infancy and
Early Childhood
CONTENT
Introduction​
Language development in infancy
Language development in early
childhood
Conclusion
​References
 3

INTRODUCTION
Language is the systematic, meaningful
arrangement of symbols that provides the basis
for communication. It is closely tied to the way we
think and how we understand the world. It
enables us to convey our thoughts to others.
Language can be written, spoken or signed.
 Language has several formal characteristics such as:- 4

Phonolog Basic sound of language (phonemes) that can be

y combined to produce words and sentences.

Morphem Smallest language unit that has meaning.

es
Semantic Rules that govern the meaning of words and
s sentences.

The way words are combined to form acceptable

Syntax
phrases and sentences.

Pragmati Appropriate conversation & knowledge of how to

cs effectively use language in context.
 LANGUAGE
DEVELOPMENT
Language development occurs
across the phases of infancy, early
childhood, middle & late childhood
and adolescence.
 Language Development In Infancy 6

• Infants produces a variety of sounds like cooing, gurgling, and other

types of noises. These sounds are not meaningful in themselves but
play an important role in linguistic development.
 7

Sequence of language development in infancy:-

Recognizing
Two Word
Vocalization Gestures Language First Words
Utterances
Sounds

Birth & 8 to 12 6 - 8 months 10 to 15 18 to 24

during 1st months months months
year
 Vocalization 8

Infants produce a number of vocalizations long

before they speak recognizable words. It goes
through the following sequence during the 1st year
:-
Crying – babies cry even at birth. Crying signals
distress but different types of cries signal different
things
When deaf infants are
Cooing – first coo at about 1-2 months. These are born to deaf parents
gurgling sounds that are made in the back of the who use sign language,
they babble with their
throat and usually express pleasure during hands &fingers at about
interaction with caregiver. the same age that
hearing children babble
Babbling – in the middle of 1st year babies babble vocally
 Gestures 9

• Start using gestures at about 8 to 12 months of

age.
• Some early gestures – symbolic (eg, smacking lips
to indicate food or drink).
• Pointing – important index of social aspect of
language
• Pointing follows a developmental sequence:-

Pointing without checking on adult gaze to pointing

while looking back & forth between object and adult
• Lack of pointing – significant indicator of problems
in the infants communication systems.
 Recognizing Language Sounds 10

• Long before they begin to learn words, infants can make fine
distinctions among the sounds of the language.

• Kuhl’s (2007, 2009) research has demonstrated that from birth to

about 6 months of age, infants recognize when sounds change most
of the time, no matter what language the syllables come from. But
over the next six months, infants get even better at perceiving the
changes in sounds from their “own” language, the one their parents
speak, and gradually lose the ability to recognize differences that are
not important in their own language.

• Infants must fish out individual words from the nonstop stream of
sound that makes up ordinary speech. To do so, they must find the
boundaries between words, which is very difficult for infants because
adults don’t pause between words when they speak. Still, infants
 First Words 11

• The infant’s first spoken word, usually doesn’t occur

until 10 to 15 months of age and at an average of
about 13 months. Yet long before babies say their first
words, they have been communicating with their
parents, often by gesturing and using their own
special sounds. The appearance of first words is a
continuation of this communication process.
• On the average, infants understand about 50 words at
about 13 months, but they can’t say this many words
until about 18 months. Thus, in infancy receptive
vocabulary (words the child understands)
 12

• The infant’s spoken vocabulary rapidly increases once the first

word is spoken. This rapid increase in vocabulary that begins
at approximately 18 months is called the vocabulary spurt.
• Children sometimes overextend or underextend the meanings
of the words they use. Overextension is the tendency to apply
a word to objects that are inappropriate for the word’s
meaning. Underextension is the tendency to apply a word too
narrowly; it occurs when children fail to use a word to name a
relevant event or object.
 Two Word Utterances 13

• By the time children are 18 to 24 months of

age, they usually utter two-word messages. To
convey meaning with just two words, the child
relies heavily on gesture, tone, and context.
the two-word utterances omit many parts of
In every language, a child’s first combinations of words have this
speech.
economical quality; they are telegraphic. Telegraphic speech is the
use of short and precise words without grammatical markers such as
articles, auxiliary verbs, and other connectives. Telegraphic speech is
not limited to two words. “Mommy give ice cream” and “Mommy give
Tommy ice cream” also are examples of telegraphic speech.
Language Development In Early Childhood 14

• Between 2 and 3 years of age toddlers begin the transition from

saying simple sentences to saying complex sentences. As children
go through their early childhood years, their grasp of the rule
systems that govern language increase.
Language development in early childhood involves the 15

following:-

Understanding Changes in syntax & Advances in

Click icon to add picture Click icon to add picture Click icon to add picture Click icon to add picture
phonology semantics pragmatics Early literacy
&morphology

2-3 years As they enter

3-5 years 3-5 years
school
Understanding Phonology & Morphology 16

• During preschool • By the time children

years, most children move beyond 2 word
gradually become utterances, they
more sensitive to the demonstrate a
sounds of spoken knowledge of
words & become morphology rules.
increasingly capable • They begin using the
of producing all plural & possessive
sounds of their forms of nouns (dogs
language. & dog’s).
• By 3 years – can • They use
produce all vowels & prepositions (in &
most consonant on), articles (a, the)
sounds. & put appropriate
Changes In Syntax & Semantics 17

• Preschool children also learn & apply rules of

syntax. They show a mastery of complex rules for
how words should be ordered.
• Gains in semantics also characterize early
childhood. Vocabulary development is dramatic.
• Some experts have concluded that between 18
months and 6 years of age, young children learn
approximately one new word every waking hour.
• Children are able to learn so many words quickly
due to fast mapping. It involves children’s
ability to make an initial connection between a
word and its referent after only limited exposure
to the word.
 Advances In Pragmatics 18

• Changes in pragmatics also characterize

young children’s language development.
• Young children begin to engage in extended
discourse. They learn culturally specific rules
of conversation and politeness, and
increasingly adapt their speech in different
settings.
• As children get older, they become
increasingly able to talk about things that are
not here and not now.
• 4 years of age - children develop a remarkable
sensitivity to the needs of others in
conversation.
• 4 to 5 years of age - children learn to change
 Early Literacy 19

• Children gain new skills as they enter school

that make it possible for them to learn to read
and write, or to advance the reading and writing
skills they have developed.
• Parents and teachers need to provide a
supportive environment to help children develop
literacy skills.
• Recent study found that literacy experiences,
the quality of the parent’s engagement with
child and provision of learning materials were
important home literacy experiences in families
that were linked to the children’s language
development in positive ways.
• Children’s early home environment influenced
 CONCLUSION 20

Among the milestones in infant language

development are crying (birth), cooing (1-2 months),
babbling (6 months), using gestures (8-12 months),
recognition of their name (as early as 5 months), 1st
word spoken (10-15 months), vocabulary spurt (18
months) and 2 word utterances (18-24 months).
Advances in phonology, morphology, syntax,
semantics and pragmatics continue in early
childhood. The transition to complex sentences
begins at 2 to 3 years of age and continues
 References
21

Feldman, R. S. (2018). Development Across the Life Span. (8th

edition). Pearson.

Santrock, J. W. (2011). Child Development. (13th edition). McGraw-

Hill Companies.
THANK YOU

Vaseela K Thaha
MSc Psychology
Semester 1
School of Behavioural
Sciences