Language Development

There are three main language skills that researchers follow in young children: phonological development, or the ability to perceive and produce the sounds of one’s language; semantic development, or growing a vocabulary; and grammatical development, or an understanding of the rules of syntax in a language. Newborns can detect the speed sounds of other languages that adult speakers cannot. Semantic development is the production of first words at 12 months of age, and by 18 months of age, there is a sudden growth in vocabulary due to “fast mapping.” The first sentence occur between 18-27 months of age and grammatical development explodes around 27-6 months of age. There are various theories about language development, including imitation and feedback – a nativist view that humans are innately equipped to learn language with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD), a statistical learning mechanism, a socio-cultural view of language development, and others. Parents supper positive language and cognitive development through reinforcement and stimulation, as well as visual cues to word reference and linguistic contrast.

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