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Stages of Development
- Before Birth
- Crying
- Cooing
- Babbling
- Phonemic Expansion
and Contraction
- Intonation and
Gesture
- Understanding
- The First Word
- At around a year, the child will usually say their first word.
- At around a year, the child will usually say their first word.
- Although the child may not be speaking properly, they may understand some words such as family members
or basic expressions and responses such as 'bye-bye', 'yes', and 'no'.
- The First Word
- Again during the babbling stage, patterns of intonation begin to resemble speech, for example
some children have a rising intonation at the end of a declarative sentence as if they were
asking a question. Gestures are shown in the way some children pointed at an object with a
facial expression as if to say 'I want that'.
- Understanding
- During the 'Babbling' stage, the number of different phonemes (units of sound) produced increases, and this is
the process of phonemic expansion. At around 9-10 months, phonemic contraction occurs, wherein the child
retains the sounds of their native language but discards those that aren't needed. The evidence for this is in the
fact that babies from different nationalities are making different noises to each other at this stage.
- Intonation and
Gesture
- Occurring between 6-9 months, this is perhaps the most important stage as babies begin to make
sounds that resemble adult noises, such as 'ma', 'da', and 'ga'. Sometimes these sounds are repeated
too, producing reduplicated monosyllables such as 'mama' or 'dada', but these sounds carry no
meaning, contrary to popular belief.
- Phonemic Expansion
and Contraction
- Occurs around 6-8 weeks. Here, the child is thought to be discovering
their vocal chords, making noises such as 'coo', 'goo', and 'ga-ga'.
- Babbling
- Vocal expression during the first few weeks in a child's life. Different 'cries' can be
identified and signal a variety of things, e.g. hunger. However, this can hardly be
labelled as 'language'.
- Cooing
- Research suggests that babies become used to
the rhythms and intonation of the language that
is spoken around them whilst in the womb.
- Crying
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