Does it ever seem to you that babies can understand you? Even if they can not respond in sentences or words. When babies are in a group, why does it seem like they can speak to each other? There are many stages to language development in infancy. How do infants learn a language?
- What are the stages of language development in infancy?
- How is language development in infants in psychology explained?
- Let's then look at language development in infancy examples.
- Next, what is the importance of language development in infancy?
- Finally, are there language development in infancy key facts?
Stages of Language Development in Infancy
When do we, as humans, begin to develop our language skills? Language begins before speaking!
As babies, we have what is referred to as receptive language. But what is receptive language?
Fig. 1 Babies love to babble.
Receptive language is when we can understand the information sounds, movements, gestures, signs, and symbols.
Research has shown that babies gain elements of receptive language much faster than other elements
Have you noticed that when a parent is teaching a baby a simple command such as, "give me the toy", the child responds by doing the task? Often, the child is not responding to the words spoken but to the movements and gestures the parent used to show them how to complete the command.
Around four months old, babies begin their language -- babbling. You know the sounds "da-da", "ma-ma", and "ba-ba" as a few examples of the language of babies. And these noises are just that -- language. Even though you may not be able to identify any actual words, these noises are still, in fact, communication and language in infancy.
Did you know that in this early babbling, a listener would not be able to identify an infant as being French, Korean, Ethiopian, etc.?
Babbling Stage -- At this stage in speech development, usually four months old, an infant will randomly spurt out various sounds unrelated to the language spoken in the home. This stage will quickly change into a more developed language at around ten months of age.
Babbling that Resembles the Language in the Home -- An infant's babbles will begin to change at ten months old. How so? A trained ear of the household can identify the babbling.
What about infants who are deaf? Even infants who are deaf and have deaf parents will babble in sign language.
One-word Stage -- Babbling morphs into a more progressive language at twelve months. Words "Kitty" or "Go" are words that, by the ear of those in the household, are considered a full sentence; "The kitty goes there!". At one year of age, the infant understands that sounds carry meanings with repeated association. Amazingly, infants use sounds that make no sense to outsiders from family members.
A one-year-old kid is told by their parent to "look at the kite!" while in the park. While the child may not understand the full sentence, the word "kite" is well known as their parent always uses it while visiting the park.
When children reach 18 months old, their rate of learning new words changes from about one word per week to one word per day!
Two-Word Speech -- Twenty-four months of age means that there is more production of two-words sentences. These sentences, being so short, contain mostly nouns and verbs such as "want teddy". There is the inclusion of syntax rules that are included making the arrangement of words easily understood. This two-word speech is referred to as telegraphic speech.
The two-word stage is the stage of speech development that begins around two when a child speaks in two-word sentences.
Telegraphic speech is an early stage where a child speaks more like a telegram and primarily uses nouns and verbs.
Beyond Two Words -- At two years old, infants are heading into childhood, attending elementary school equipped with the ability to use longer phrases in their communication.
| Age of Infant | Communication and Language Stage |
| 4 months | Babbling -- "goo-goo-ga-ga" |
| 10 months | Babbling is more related to the household language "dada" |
| 12 months | One-word speech -- "doggy" |
| 24 months | Two-word speech -- "Want juice." |
| 24 months and older | The quick development of language, later becoming complete sentences |
Language Development in Infants Psychology
The development of language for infants moves quickly and with complexity. Infants do not start with language -- obviously. But, as soon as four months old, a baby can understand different speech sounds. Even more amazingly, babies can read lips!
Did you know that in fantis (the Latin word for an infant) means not speaking?
Does this mean that a baby can secretly read your lips as you speak across the room to your friends? No. But a baby can look at faces while trying to find the source of the sounds they hear. Research shows that a baby is more inclined to look at a mouth that makes sounds such as "ah" or "ee". This recognition of sounds marks the beginning development milestones of receptive language -- the ability to slowly understand what is said to them or about them (so don't be mean to your baby brother or sister).
At six months, before even being able to utter coherent words, infants can recognize object names. Even more surprisingly, at seven months, an infant can hear an unfamiliar language and segment spoken words into individual words (Myers, 2013) (when adults do it, the syllables become a jumbled mess in their minds). A seven-month-old infant can identify word breaks and analyze which syllables most often go together.
Language Development in Infancy Examples
There are several examples of language development in infancy. Each stage of communication and language in infancy has its own set of examples to know which stage the infant is in (Language Development: Speech Milestones for Babies, 2022).
As the child is ending three months --
Ending six months --
Babbles to communicate
May focus on music if played
Moves eyes in direction of sounds
Gurgles when being played with
Can respond to changes in tone of people's voice
The ending of twelve months --
Can understand simple instructions
Turning and looking where sound originates from
Can say a few words such as "mama"
At the end of eighteen months --
Able to identify names of familiar people, objects, and body parts
Follow simple directions when used with gestures
Can say about ten words
Twenty-four months and older --
It should be noted that not all infants and children will be able to exemplify the above examples for each stage. But, if there are large discrepancies in language abilities, it could indicate problematic issues. There is great importance in language development in infancy.
Importance of Language Development in Infancy
Like many skills and functions as humans, language development is immensely important. Communication and language support many aspects of an infant's life and development. Language allows infants to have the ability to solve problems, think and learn, express and understand feelings (both their own and others'), and also allows room to develop relationships.
Learning to understand and use language is the primary step to literacy -- the basis of learning writing and reading.
If the stages of learning language are disrupted, it can cause language skill issues later as the infant or child has missed a critical opportunity to learn this skill.
Examples of disruptions to language stages can be seen in children who are adopted by families from other countries. For these children, there is often a later start to learning a language. They move through the same language learning stages however, the stages move at a faster pace.
There is a limit or cut-off period on how long the delay in learning a language can be! There are critical stages that must be completed or met so that learning certain aspects of language can occur.
Language Development in Infancy Key Facts
Culture can be an important factor in communication and language in infancy. What one culture considers to be an important aspect of learning (language for example) may not hold the same importance or severity as another.
There are a group of people known as the Tsimane foragers of Bolivia. Adults are known to spend less than one minute per every hour during the day speaking to children who are younger than four years old. What may seem uncommon to people in the United States of America may be completely normal elsewhere.
Fig. 2 Language development is different for other cultures, commons.wikimedia.org
Either way, language development is still crucial for many reasons. Here are some key facts about language development in infancy:
Reading books or sharing stories can increase and be beneficial to language development.
Developing language starts with gesturing and sounds more than simply using words and sentences.
Talking with infants and responding when they try to communicate in return can benefit language development.
Cognition, literacy, and social development rely on language development.
Language Development in Infancy - Key takeaways
- Receptive language is when we are able to understand the information sounds, movements, gestures, signs, and symbols. Research has shown that babies gain elements of receptive language much faster than other elements.
- The two-word stage is the stage of speech development that begins around the age of two when a child speaks in two-word sentences.
- Telegraphic speech is an early stage of speech where a child speaks more like a telegram and uses mostly nouns and verbs.
- Language allows infants to have the abilities to solve problems, think and learn, express and understand feelings (both their own and others'), and also allows room to develop relationships.
- Culture can be an important factor in communication and language in infancy. What one culture considers to be an important aspect of learning (language for example) may not hold the same importance or severity as another.
References
- Language development: Speech milestones for babies. (2022, February 23). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved September 21, 2022, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/infant-and-toddler-health/in-depth/language-development/art-20045163?reDate=21092022
- Fig. 2 Ethnobiology 5, Simon Fraser University - Communications & Marketing, commons.wikimedia.org, CC-BY-2.0
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