Key Stages

Question 1

‘Cooing’

Answer 1

0-3 months
Babies demonstrate some control over their
vocal cords.

Question 2

‘Babbling’

Answer 2

6-12 months
• Phonemic expansion; babies produce a huge
range of sounds.
• Phonemic contraction at about 9 months;
babies only produce sounds of their native
language. Includes intonation and some
syllable sounds.
• May speak first word during this time –
though may not be widely understood as a
word!

Question 3

‘Holophrastic’ stage

Answer 3

12-18 months
• First word usually a concrete noun.
• Child may only have command of 3
consonants and 1 vowel.
• By 18 months, child may have acquired up to
50 words but can understand many more.
• Sometimes the child will use two words as
one unit of meaning e.g. ‘allgone’.
• Gesture and intonation help to express
meaning.

Question 4

‘Two word’ stage

Answer 4

18-24 months
• Combinations of words e.g. ‘Ben bed’.
• Meaning can be ambiguous; above example
could be a statement of possession, location
or action.
• Some aspects of grammar may be
understood e.g. syntax (word order), how
certain classes of words are used together –
‘my teddy’, ‘she cold’, ‘on head’.

Question 5

‘Telegraphic’ stage

Answer 5

24-30 months
• Makes multiple word utterances.
• Usually leaves out non-lexical words e.g.
auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, articles and
inflections (grammatical endings).
• Begins to master basic word order i.e. SVO,
SVC, SVA

Question 6

Development of grammar, pragmatics &

pronunciation (year)

Answer 6

30-40 months
• Has mastered all the vowels and 2/3 of the
consonants
• Uses more non-lexical words, e.g.
conjunctions (‘and’  ‘but’  ‘cos’  ‘when’)
• Begins to use inflectional endings to signal
tenses, plurals etc

Question 7

Has command of most consonants (year)

Answer 7

4 years

Question 8

2000 word vocabulary (year)

Answer 8

5 years

Question 9

Final consonants mastered

4000 word vocabulary (year)

Answer 9

6 years