Stages of Language Development

Question 1

What is Plateaus?

Answer 1

“One word Stage”

1;0-1:6

Question 2

What is Transitions Stage?

Answer 2

“Two word Stage”

1:6

Question 3

What is Accelerations Stage?

Answer 3

“word spurt”

1;6

Question 4

What is Co-occurances stage

Answer 4

“telegraphic stage”

2;0

Question 5

What is Rules/ “overregularization stage”?

Answer 5

“foots” instead of “feet”

Question 6

True or False: The word “stage” only refers to different ages?

Answer 6

False- Researchers have used the term ‘stage’ in many different ways.
1-age
2-milestones
3-Mean Length of Utterance (MLU)

Question 7

Stage Models

Answer 7

Diary Studies- William Stern (1924) (1st to talk about stages, own kids)
Large Sample Studies- Margaret Nice (1925) (developed a stage model, similar to stern, based on all the studies/ kids she had read about)
Longitudinal Studies- Roger Brown (1973) (Adam, Eve, Sarah- various types of degree/speed of learners)

Question 8

Prelinguistic Stage

Answer 8

0;0-1;0
Onset of speech perception
cooing in first months
onset of babbling around 0;6
prepares child to understand and acquire words

Question 9

Single Word Stage

Answer 9

1;0-1;6
Onset of words around 1;0
mostly object-like words initially
holophrases-single words with meaning of a sentence.
slow acquisition of approximately 50 words

Question 10

Early Sentence stage

Answer 10

1;6-2;0
Word Spurt: sudden increase in word acquisition
onset of multiwords utterances (ex. “mommy sock”)
Telegraphic stage
Stages of vocabulary: substance>action>relation-attribute

Question 11

short sentence stage

Answer 11

2;0-2;6
onset of grammatical development
onset of inflections (plural, past tense,etc.)
onset of grammatical structure (e.g. pronouns, prepositions, auxiliaries)
Stable ratio (Nice)

Question 12

complete Sentence Stage

Answer 12

2;6-6;0
advanced grammatical development
onset of subordinate clauses (relative clause, complement clause, adverbial clauses)
completion of basic grammar by 6;0

Question 13

School Age

Answer 13

6;0-up
infrequent complex aspects of grammar
reading & writing
expansion of constructions through reformulations
reformulations- repeat meaning with a change in structure.

Question 14

Brown’s stages (Study & Explanation)

Answer 14

Roger Brown (1973) A first Language
Study of Adam, Eve, & Sarah
Longitudinal visits every two weeks for 1 hr.
Based on MLU (Mean Length of Utterance) in morphemes.
Each stage has: range of MLU values, Midpoint, and upper bound.

Question 15

Brown’s Stages

Answer 15

I early    1.0-1.49       
I late       1.5-1.99     1.75      5
II             2.0-2.49      2.25     7
III             2.5-2.99      2.75     9
IV            3.0-3.99       3.50    11
V             4.0 & up       4         13

Question 16

Brown’s Stages Cont.

Answer 16

I= semantic roles (actor + action)
II = Modulation of meaning : 14 grammatical morphemes
III = Modalities of the simple sentence (auxiliary acquisition)
IV = embedding sentences
V = Coordination & propositional relations

Question 17

Purpose of stages

Answer 17

Description- identify something that is changing (word spurt)
Explanation- give and defend a reason for a change
Example-
1) Descriptive stage = measure rate of word learning.
2) Explanatory Stage = reason for change
- cognitive advance with symbols
-phonological advance with sounds

Question 18

Summary of Stages

Answer 18

Traditional Stages
Brown’s Stages based on MLU
Mostly descriptive stages
Goal is to expand knowledge of explanatory stages