Language

Kean University

Corey Vigdor
 The Stages of Developing Language

Language allows humans to communicate efficiently and effectively, thus making human

relationships stronger and weaker inadvertently. The former, one of the main importances of

language as a tool for communication, is what allows babies to develop a stronger bond with

their parents or guardians and caretakers, even if the language they use for a significant portion

of their lives as babies is incoherent. The progression from incoherence to coherence occurs on

average over a period of 4 years, from birth. Each of these stages is distinguishable from another

because of the milestones that a baby makes, advancing from the previous stage and culminating

with them being able to make full sentences.

The first of these stages is the pre-linguistic language development stage. As the term

suggests, this is before a baby is able to make words that are comprehensible. In this stage,

babies are able to make coos and laugh between 2 and 5 months of age. They then advance to

vocal play anywhere between 4 and 8 months, whereby they are able to make longer sounds than

before by stringing together vowel or consonant sounds. Thereafter, they begin babbling from 6

to 13 months and can form short words such as “da-da” or “ma-ma.”

The second stage is the linguistic language development stage which is also broken down

into various milestones. Between 12 and 19 months, babies have developed the ability to

enunciate simple words and thus make use of single words to refer to a particular thing. At this

point, they can correlate a word to mean something. At 14 to 24 months of age, the vocabulary

expands, and they can still use single words to refer to particular objects. They can now pinpoint

various items in their environment. Anywhere from 20 to 30 months, babies gain the ability to

join two words to construct simple expressions, such as “bye mom.” Between 28 to 42 months,
they can now string three words together, after which they advance to 4 words between 34 and

48 months. At this point, children can make full sentences using four words.

How Parents can Prompt and Improve Language

Children are unable to make all this progression by themselves and rely on their

immediate environment to learn what certain words mean and how to use these words to

communicate. Parents are central to this process because they interact more with their babies

than any other communicating beings or tools such as radios. One way parents can assist their

babies in developing language is by communicating to them early on, even if the baby does not

understand language at the time. Communication can be undertaken through the use of gestures.

This acts as a reinforcement to the need of learning language since a baby is able to comprehend

that communication has outcomes, and is thus incentivized to communicate their needs however

they can (Cortese, n.d.). Another step parents can take is to converse with their babies instead of

asking them questions. At this stage, when they are developing language, babies do not have the

cognitive ability to properly comprehend questions and answer them. Parents should move at

their pace and even use the words that they have already learned to strengthen their memory and

build a closer bond due to the ease in communication, which in turn allows babies to even

communicate further.

Theories of Language Development

The nativist theory states that the ability to learn language is encoded into our genes, and

thus all human beings have this ability from the moment they are born. This theory is formed on

the basis that there is a form of universal language from which other languages are formed

because most languages are formed through the use of verbs and nouns. The behaviorist theory

states that language is learned from our environment, whereby a desired behavior is reinforced
after it occurs. An example is parents rewarding their children after they say certain words

through gestures. Corrections also reinforce how language should be used. The sociocultural

theory combines biology and sociology to state that children learn language from a need within

themselves to communicate. The sociocultural theory is similar to the nativist theory in that they

both consider the role of human biology in the development of language. This common

characteristic also makes the two theories differ from the behavioral theory because the latter

identifies encouragement from the environment as the need to learn language. The theory that

gives the most accurate reason as to why language is learned is the sociocultural theory. This is

because we want to be understood by other people. Thus, we have to find a shared

communication medium of which language is the best because it is shared among many people

in different social groupings.

References

Cortese, R. (n.d.). Helping Toddlers Expand Language Skills. Child Mind Institute. Retrieved

June 13, 2021, from https://childmind.org/article/helping-toddlers-expand-their-language-

skills/