1 Psychology and human development1.7 Language and communication
1.7.4 Language development in childhood
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Written by Resident Doctor Committee · Published
Receptive and expressive language
Receptive language is understanding words, grammar and instructions, and expressive language is producing words and sentences.
Pragmatics is the social use of language: turn-taking, keeping to a topic, adapting to the listener and repairing misunderstandings.
Understanding develops before expression, and receptive difficulties are easily mistaken for inattention or defiance.
Isolated expressive delay often improves, while combined receptive and expressive difficulties are more likely to persist.
Prelinguistic stage, birth to 12 months
The prelinguistic period is the time before a child uses meaningful words or signs.
Age | Milestone | What the child does |
|---|---|---|
From 6 to 8 weeks, filling the first 3 months | Cooing | Makes open vowel sounds with no consonants |
3 to 6 months | Laughing and squealing | Laughs aloud, squeals in play and turns to a voice |
About 6 months (canonical at 6 to 7 months) | Babbling | Repeats consonant-vowel syllables such as "baba", within a normal window of 6 to 12 months |
About 9 months | Conversational babbling | Babbles tunefully, but does not yet use the sounds for a particular person |
From 9 months | Joint attention | Uses gaze, gesture and checking back, which help link words with meanings |
In autism spectrum disorder the prelinguistic period is protracted and can last into adolescence or adulthood.
First words and early grammar
Age | Expressive language | Other features |
|---|---|---|
12 to 18 months | Meaningful single words, used as holophrases, after about six months of babbling | Tuneful jargon between words; "dada" becomes a true word for one person |
16 months | About 40 words | |
18 months | About 6 to 20 words, up to 50; no word combinations | Understands several times more words than they say; points to named body parts |
18 to 24 months | Two-word combinations, usually once vocabulary passes about 50 words | Combinations are expected by 24 months |
2 years | About 50 words | |
3 years | About 900 to 1,000 words in three- to four-word sentences | Uses plurals, pronouns, "the", and what and where questions; strangers follow about three quarters of the speech |
36 to 48 months | Overregularised grammar | Strangers understand most but not all of the speech |
4 years | About 1,500 words; grammatically correct speech, largely intelligible to strangers | Asks why, when and how; gives a connected account of recent events |
5 years | About 2,000 or more words; adult-like grammatical speech | Gives full name, age and address; defines objects by use; asks what words mean; may still say "f" for "th" |
A holophrase is a single word standing for a whole utterance, such as "milk".
Telegraphic speech, typical from about 18 months to 3 years and centred on about 2 years, strings content words together in adult word order and leaves out function words and inflections ("more juice").
Overregularisation ("runned") shows that the child has learned a grammatical rule before its exceptions.
Overextension uses a word too broadly, calling every four-legged animal "dog", and underextension uses it too narrowly.
Delay is judged against the upper limit of normal, not the average age, so a child with no single words at 18 months is delayed.
Theories and terms
Theorist | Account |
|---|---|
Skinner | Reinforcement and shaping contribute to language learning |
Chomsky | An innate language acquisition device lets the child work out grammar from limited adult speech, argued from the poverty of the input |
Bruner | Caregiver routines and joint attention form a language acquisition support system |
Bernstein's restricted code is condensed, implicit and context-bound, shared by speakers who know the context; the elaborated code is explicit, complex, individualised and abstract.
Lexical semantics is the branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words.
Influences on the rate of development
A family history of late talking or speech and language disorder is the strongest and most consistent predictor of language delay.
Bilingualism does not cause language delay or disorder, and a true disorder affects learning in every language the child uses.
Low maternal education raises the risk of delay through a poorer home language environment.
Responsive interaction with caregivers matters more than the number of words a child hears.
Slower early language | Faster early language |
|---|---|
Boys | Girls |
Twins | |
Larger families and later-born children | First-born children |
Lower social class | Higher social class |
Too little adult talk, as in deaf or neglected children |
Assessment and markers of concern
Test hearing in any language delay, including fluctuating loss from middle ear effusion.
Early exposure to a full signed language supports language development in deaf children.
Age | Seek assessment if the child |
|---|---|
10 months | Is not babbling |
18 months | Has no single words |
2 years | Has no two-word combinations, or only two or three words |
3 years | Has speech largely unintelligible to unfamiliar adults |
Any age | Loses skills, which needs prompt evaluation, or shows reduced gesture, joint attention or comprehension, or parents are concerned |