The Stages of Child Language Acquisition

When looking at the process of a child's language acquisition, we are able to break it up into four of stages that help to see how your child is progressing in learning language. They indicate things like the child's primary mode (how they communicate), if they use lexemes (words) and how many they use and whether or nor the child uses syntax to construct and articulate their thoughts correctly.

MONTHS

PRE-VERBAL STAGE:
(BIRTH - 11 MONTHS)

Most people often think that the beginning of child language acquisition begins with the first words of the child, this is incorrect. The pre-verbal stage occurs from birth to 11 months, before the child begins speaking words.
    Even though the child cannot yet speak their own words and express their thoughts, they are beginning to understand the primary aspects of how language works.

The child will learn a number of things about communication that become a passive act to most people:
The first is called 'Eye gaze norm': This is the process of looking at someone when communicating with them, however this is not true in all cultures and may vary.
The second thing is 'Turn taking norm': This establishes the basis for basic social convention, knowing when to speak and when to let others speak when taking part in a conversation. This also varies depending on culture, while some people may interrupt or talk over people and others should wait for a pause before talking.

    Due to the child not being able to correctly articulate words, they must use other means to communicate, these are called their primary modes. The child's language exist in two forms, body language and basic sounds. Body language normally consists of pointing at objects, moving their arms, stamping their feet and physically touching people, such as pulling their sleeves or tapping them. Communicating with basic sounds doesn't begin until around 7 months, when the child starts to make speech-like sounds. The range of sounds made by the child is large, regardless of the language of their caretaker. Over time, the number of sounds shrinks and the sounds that are used become more frequent; these sounds usually represent sounds of the language that the child will eventually speak.

HOLOPHRASTIC STAGE:
(11 - 18 MONTHS)

At the end of the first year, the child will start to produce a very small range of single words. These initial words are usually linked to everyday items, interaction or people. The child will use their limited speech along with their previous experience with body language to communicate with other people.

The first sounds, or phonemes, that are produced are usually vowels, as they are easy to articulate. After the vowels, the first consonants that the child will produce will consist of k, d, t, m, n, p and b. These phonemes are the next to be learnt as they do not require advanced placement of the tongue and other parts of the vocal tract.  

The isolated words that the child will learn will have a variety of meanings, such as if the child says the word: 'Drink'. This could mean that the child would like a drink, that their drink is empty or demanding someone to drink.

TELEGRAPHIC STAGE:

(18 - 30 MONTHS)

At this stage, the child's vocabulary will have grown to account for roughly 50 words. At this point the child will make a sudden advancement in their language, as they will learn many new words as well as starting to say two-word utterances, however they are usually very general and lack a lot of grammatical information.

An example of this may be: "Drink Daddy". This utterance may mean a number of things such as asking the child's father for a drink or asking the father to drink. The word order in the utterances is usually important as they tend to conform to the conventions of the language they are learning. In the example, the child is most likely asking their father for a drink, due to the word order. 

MULTI-WORD STAGE:

(30 MONTHS +)

After a few years (approximately 2.5 years), the child's utterances will grow in length, to longer phases and full sentences. Not only will their sentences develop in length, but they will start to develop and use morphemes and syntax.

The morphemes (parts of full words) that the child will begin to use will allow them to communicate plurals, tense and possession. 

The child will start to create proper syntactical structure in their utterances, allowing them to better convey their thoughts by using a subject, verb and object in the sentences.

You can see in the following video, the fours stages of child language acquisition:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxtLhgzntg8