2. STAGES OF FIRST LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Age Accomplishment Examples
0-2 months Crying (express hunger and discomfort)
2-4 months Cooing (express satisfaction or pleasure) aaa, ooo
4-9 months
Babbling, gurgling, changing to echolalic
babbling
gagaga,
mamamama
9-18 months
One-word utterances; refer to people and
objects in baby’s life
juice; mama
18 months—
2 ½ years
Two-word utterances; the beginning of syntax,
expanding to three-word utterances; allows for
more communicative functions (commenting,
negating, requesting, & questioning)
more juice
juice fall down
Daddy go?
2 ½ years —4
years
Telegraphic Stage (S-V-O): Expanded syntax
and vocabulary; omit key grammatical markers
and function words
I eated bread

3. DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCES
Stages are universal.
Year 1 –
 Involuntary crying when they are hungry or
uncomfortable
 Babbling and gurgling
 Can distinguish between sounds

4. DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCES
1 yr.
2 yrs.

5. STAGES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

6. EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF
LANGUAGE FEATURES
♣ Universal
♣ Related to children’s cognitive development
♣ No temporal adverbs until they develop a
sense of time (tomorrow, last week)

7. STAGES OF ACQUISITION OF GRAMMATICAL
MORPHEMES
Roger Brown et al. (1973) did a longitudinal
study of three children –Adam, Eve and
Sarah
Jill & Peter de Villiers (1973) confirmed it in a
cross-sectional study of 21 children

8. STAGES OF ACQUISITION OF GRAMMATICAL
MORPHEMES
Order of acquisition
1. Present progressive
2. Plural
3. Irregular past forms
4. Possessive
5. Copula

9. STAGES OF ACQUISITION OF GRAMMATICAL
MORPHEMES
♣ 6. Articles
♣ 7. Regular past
♣ 8. Third person singular simple present
♣ 9. Auxiliary

10. EARLY SENTENCE PRODUCTION
When?

11. DEVELOPMENT OF SENTENCE PRODUCTION
STAGE I
Example Communicative Intent

12. DEVELOPMENT OF SENTENCE PRODUCTION
STAGE II
Form Example

13. DEVELOPMENT OF SENTENCE PRODUCTION
STAGE III
Form Example

14. DEVELOPMENT OF SENTENCE PRODUCTION
STAGE IV
Form Example

15. DEVELOPMENT OF SENTENCE PRODUCTION
STAGE V
Form Example

17. CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS
Lenneberg
Some experiments:
Victor
Genie

18. CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS

19. CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS

20. THE END