Stages

Question 1

Pre-verbal stage (0-12 months)

Answer 1

• child will engage in vocal play and babling which helps their vocal chords to strengthen and play with new sounds
• simple gestures such as pointing and mimicing sounds /actions made by others

Question 2

Holophrastic (12-18 months)

Answer 2

• Full of single word utterances
• holophrases are words that represent wholse phrases might be aided by gestures or intonation to indicate meaning
• 60% of child’s first utterances are nouns, people, animals and things that the child sees
• research shows that these first words are often the names of objects which are easily handled by the child or things which move or make noise

Question 3

Two word stage (18-24)

Answer 3

• most of their utterances consist of only 2 words
• no inflectionals to mark number, person or tense, or any of the building blocks of grammar
• pronouns rare although children may use ‘me’ to refer to themselves
• may increasingly use words that relate to the caregivers they are the closest to

Question 4

Telegraphic stage (24-36) months

Answer 4

• Utterances at this stage are characterised by their lack of function words- there is generally an absence of prepositions, conjunctions and articles
• Utterances consist mainly of content words
• tenses, plurals and pronouns still confused and incorrect
• turn taking is developing

Question 5

Post-telegraphic stage (36+)

Answer 5

• at around 3 there is dramatic change in children’s language characterised by
• use of conjunctions such as ‘and’ leading to use of compound/complexsentences
• formation of grammatically correct questions used in convo
• correct use of pronouns, negative and simple tense changes
• politeness included
• use of ‘and then’ in telling stories