Language has a big effect on child development that is beyond language development. Language involves the process by which children acquire their psychological well-being. This paper will discuss the process of psychological development of language. The paper will describe the whole process of language development from the first to the last stage.
Language development is that process by which children learn how to vocalize speech and associate with it. The stages of child language development are;
- Babbling: The first stage in language development is in infancy (from 3-9 months). During this period infants make such sounds as aaaaa and ooooo during the third and fourth month, by the fifth month the infant starts to add consonants to make such sounds like ba-ba-ba or ma-ma-ma.
- Mimicry (single words): At the end of the babbling stage, the toddler will start mimicking sounds that it hears. At this stage, the children also begin to comprehend language almost twice the speed they are able to produce it. This happens when they are 10-13 months of age.
- Semantic development (two words): this is the third stage that begins at age 18 months when the children begin to acquire speech and start picking up meanings associated with sounds that they use. They pair sounds with appropriate object sounds to help underpin the meaning and speed up this stage of development. If children at this stage are praised for correct words and no response for incorrect ones, they will pick up words at a very high rate.
- Pragmatics (multi-word sentces): at this stage children start recognizing that the words they say have meanings and thus rules of speech start playing. This stage especially emphasizes conversational skills as an important part of language. Kids will learn how to speak appropriately, learn the purpose of rules of language. They are able to say a simple greeting or make a simple inquiry.
- Grammar: This is the most difficult stage of language development. Proper use of words and some basic sentences are acquired through time and with experience. Formal and informal methods are used to teach grammar and help extend beyond basic sentence structure.
As they age, children will continue to learn more words such that by the time athey are ready for school (around age 5), they will have a vocabulary of around 10,000 words.