CLA - the post telegraphic stage

Question 1

At what age would you expect to observe the post telegraphic stage?

Answer 1

Three to five years

Question 2

What language development would you expect to observe at this stage? (x8)

Answer 2

1. Using language in more complex ways.
2. Combining ideas using coordinating conjunctions (and)
3. Using subordinating conjunctions (because)
4. Number words
5. Words connected to emotions
6. Family terms
7. Colours
8. Contrasting concepts (longer/ bigger…)

Question 3

What is a hypernym?

Answer 3

Words for categories of things e.g. furniture or primate.

Question 4

What is a hyponym?

Answer 4

Words within a category e.g. ‘cat’ or ‘hamster’ within the wider category of animals.

Question 5

How do children learn new and more complex words at this stage?

Answer 5

Listening to their parents, siblings, wider family members.
Wider social networks e.g. attending playgroup, listening to stories, guessing at meanings based on context.

Question 6

What new aspects of grammar do children begin to use at this stage?

Answer 6

1. Past tense
2. Plurals - a 1958 study by Berko showed children an imaginary creature called a ‘wug’. When shown two, children were able to complete the sentence ‘there are two wugs’ showing that they were able to apply the grammatical rule of adding ‘s’ for plurals.
3. Question forms (e.g. Can I have one?)
4. Auxiliary verbs (do, followed by can and will)

Question 7

What are virtuous errors?

Answer 7

When children apply regular grammatical endings to words with irregular forms (e.g. runned, goed, wented, mouses)

Question 8

What common mistakes might children still make at this stage?

Answer 8

1. Duplicate modal verbs (e.g. Please may can I….?) which might reflect an understanding that ‘may’ is needed for manners, while ‘can’ indicates the fact of being able to do something.
2. Mixing up homophones. e.g. children may understand that words can have more than one meaning but they might still mix things up.

Question 9

What are idioms?

Answer 9

Expressions with non-literal meanings e.g. ‘you’re pulling my leg.’ Children at this stage will begin to understand this non-literal language.

Question 10

By the age of five, what can most children do? (x4)

Answer 10

1. Converse in the majority of situations - even though they may be mainly be interested in conversations about themselves.)
2. Articulate complex language structures and tenses.
3. Understand the conditional tense (e.g. ‘if it stops raining we could go to the park) i.e. that there is an element of uncertainty or possibility.
4. Understand more abstract ideas such as idioms