Language develops through a series of stages from infancy through adulthood. Infants begin with crying and cooing, then progress to babbling and first words between 10-15 months. By 18-24 months, children use two-word phrases to communicate. In early childhood, children rapidly expand their vocabulary and grammar skills, learning rules of syntax, morphology, and semantics. Literacy instruction begins in preschool through activities like dialogic reading. In middle childhood, children further develop reading, writing, and metalinguistic skills. Adolescents gain skills in vocabulary, metaphor, and literary analysis. In adulthood, vocabulary increases until late life when retrieval difficulties and slowed processing may occur, though communication remains adequate.

1. PSY 375:
LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT
Language Development
Week 6

2. What is Language?
Language is a form of communication—whether
spoken, written, or signed—based on a system of
symbols
All human languages have:
• Infinite generativity: the ability to produce an endless
number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of
words and rules
• Organizational rules that describe the way language
works

3. Language’s Rule Systems

4. Biological Influences
Although estimates vary, many experts hold that
humans acquired language about 100,000 years
ago

5. Theories of Language
Development

7. How Language Develops: Infancy 1
Infants use early vocalizations to practice making
sounds, to communicate, and to attract attention
• Crying, with different types signaling different things
• Cooing, first emerging at 2 to 4 months
• Babbling, often around the middle of the first year
Infants begin using gestures at about 8 to 12
months
• Showing and pointing
• Some gestures are symbolic
• Pointing is considered an important social aspect of
language

8. How Language Develops: Infancy
Long before they begin to learn words, infants
recognize different language sounds
• From birth to about 10 months, “citizens of the world,”
able to recognize sound changes no matter which
language the syllables come from

9. How Language Develops: Infancy
Between 5 and 12 months, infants indicate their
first understanding of words
• Understand words before they can speak them
• First words usually spoken at 10 to 15 months
• Common first words:
 Names of important people
 Familiar animals
 Vehicles and toys
 Foods and body parts
 Clothes and household terms
 Greeting terms

10. How Language Develops: Infancy
Infants’ spoken vocabulary increases rapidly once
their first words are spoken
Children often overextend or underextend the
meanings of words
• Overextension:
• Underextension:

11. How Language Develops: Infancy
Two-word utterances emerge around 18 to 24
months
 Identification: “See doggie”
 Location: “Book there”
 Repetition: “More milk”
 Nonexistence: “All gone”
 Possession: “My candy”
 Attribution: “Big car”
 Agent-action: “Mama walk”
 Question: “Where ball?”

12. How Language Develops: Infancy

13. Typical Age Language Milestones
Birth Crying
2 to 4 months Cooing begins
5 months Understands first word
6 months Babbling begins
7 to 11 months Change from universal linguist to
language-specific listener
8 to 12 months Uses gestures, such as showing and pointing
Comprehension of words appears
13 months First word spoken
18 months Vocabulary spurt starts
18 to 24 months Uses two-word utterances
Rapid expansion of understanding of words

14. How Language Develops:
Early Childhood
By the time children move beyond two-word
utterances, they demonstrate knowledge of
morphology rules
• Using plural and possessive of nouns
• Appropriate endings on verbs
• Use of prepositions, articles, and various forms of
the verb “to be”

15. How Language Develops:
Early Childhood
Preschool children also learn and apply rules
of syntax
• Show a growing mastery of complex rules for word order
Gains in semantics also characterize early
childhood
• Fast mapping: making a connection between a word and
its referent after limited exposure to a word

16. How Language Develops:
Early Childhood

17. How Language Develops:
Early Childhood
Advances in pragmatics also characterize young
children’s language development
• Begin to engage in extended discourse
• Learn culturally specific rules of conversation and
politeness
• Become sensitive to the need to adapt their speech in
different settings

18. How Language Develops:
Early Childhood Literacy
Literacy instruction for preschoolers should be
built on what children already know about oral
language, reading, and writing
• Physical activity aids early literacy
• Parents and teachers need to provide a supportive
environment
Extent to which phonological awareness is linked
to learning to read varies across language
• Rates of dyslexia also vary

19. How Language Develops:
Early Childhood Literacy
Books can be valuable in enhancing children’s
communication skills – dialogic reading

20. How Language Develops:
Middle and Late Childhood

21. How Language Develops:
Middle and Late Childhood
Children begin to organize their mental
vocabulary in new ways during middle and late
childhood
• Learn the alphabetic principle
• Categorize words by parts of speech
Advances in vocabulary and grammar take place
• Accompanied by the development of metalinguistic
awareness: knowledge about language, allowing
children “to think about their language, understand
what words are, and even define them”
Children also make progress in pragmatics

22. Middle and Late Childhood:
Reading

23. Middle and Late Childhood:
Writing
In early childhood, children’s motor skills progress
to the point that they can begin printing letters
As they begin to write, children often invent
spellings, basing them on the sounds of the words
they hear
Writing skills develop as language and cognitive
skills develop

24. Second-Language Learning
and Bilingualism
Are there sensitive periods in learning a second
language?
• Sensitive periods likely vary across language systems
• For adolescents and adults, new vocabulary is easier to
learn than new sounds or grammar

25. Second-Language Learning
and Bilingualism
Different type of bilingualism occurs when
immigrant children must learn their new language
at school
• In the U.S., many end up being monolingual speakers of
English—called subtractive bilingualism
What is the best way to teach English language
learners (ELLs)?
• Dual-language approach: instruction in both the home
language and English

26. How Language Develops:
Adolescence
Adolescents develop greater sophistication in the
use of words
• Understanding metaphor, an implied comparison
between unlike things
• Better able to understand satire, or the use of irony,
derision, or wit to expose folly or wickedness
More advanced logical thinking allows adolescents
to understand complex literary works

27. How Language Develops:
Adulthood and Aging
Vocabulary increases are experienced up until
late adulthood
Older adults experience difficulty in retrieving
words and in understanding language in certain
contexts
• Often involves the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
• Hearing loss may contribute to these difficulties

28. How Language Develops:
Adulthood and Aging
Older adults’ speech is typically slower, less
precisely articulated, and less fluent
• Speech skills are adequate for everyday communication
Slower information-processing speeds and
declines in working memory may contribute to
reduced language efficiency
• Bilingualism may delay the onset of Alzheimer disease