Stages of Development

The Stages of Development

In the exam, you will be given a transcript and the age of the child. In your response, you should say what stage of development the child is in and whether that conforms to what is expected of the child. The stages are as follows:

The Holophrastic Stage

The Holophrastic Stage denotes the period of time when children speak using single words (or holophrases).
Generally speaking, this happens between 9-18 months. The holophrases are predominately (but not always) nouns.
The holophrases will often encompass many meanings and moods. For example, juice could mean:
- Can I have some juice? (Interrogative)
- Give me juice! (Imperative)
- There’s the juice. (declarative)

The Two-Word Stage

Often confused with the Telegraphic Stage, this stage denotes utterances of two words only.
This stage occurs between 18 and 24 months.
Other word classes start to emerge, but nouns still dominate.
Syntax is explored (correctly).
- Subject-verb (‘Robin jump’).
- Verb-object (‘jump dog’).
- Noun phrases (pre-mod adj + noun – ‘big dog’).
Inflections are not applied to verbs.

Telegraphic Stage

The Telegraphic Stage denotes when a child is speaking using utterances with just enough information. This word ‘telegraphic’ stems from the word ‘telegram’.
Roughly occurs between 24 and 30 months.
A wider range of word classes are acquired (particularly pronouns, followed by determiners and prepositions).
For example:
- ‘Rory want food’.
- ‘This coat all wet’.

2.5-5 years

From 2.5 years old onwards, there is rapid expansion through to 5 years old. In particular, more frequent adjectives.
Between 3-5 years, the child enters the complex utterance stage (sometimes referred to as the Post-telegraphic Stage).
This includes time features, contracted negatives and increasingly accurate inflections.

Negation

Within the acquisition of language and word order, a child quickly learns to use negations.
Between being Holophrastic and Two Word, the child starts to front negatives like ‘no like that’.
As we approach the Telegraphic stage, the child is starting to place negatives before the main verb like ‘don’t like you’.
Past this, negation is almost always correct and errors tend to be virtuous.

Stages of Development - David Crystal

David Crystal states that children will have the following linguistic abilities at their disposal at these ages:

Up to 1 years old

'Scribble talk’ – sounds like adult speech, but has no meaning.

1 year, 8 months old

Around 50 words in their lexicon.
Littered with reduplication and overextension.

2 years old

Inflections are emerging, but are insecure.
Around 300 words known.
Object permanence emerges. This is the understanding that objects exist even when you can't see them.

3 years old

Up to 10 words are being used per sentence utterance.
Vocabulary is too big and varied to accurately estimate.
Irregular verbs and nouns cause problems (e.g. 'run' and 'mouse').
Parataxis (repeated use of coordinating conjunctions like ‘and’) begins to be used.
Multiple negation/double negatives start to happen – the child does not grasp that negatives cancel each other out.
Contractions begin to be used.

Acquisition of Grammatical Constructions

Inflectional morphemes and other grammatical features (and grammatical words) are acquired in a specific order. Brown’s research proposes that they are learned in this order:

Illustrative background for 1-6 ?? "content

1-6

Present progressive (-ing) – I am walking.
Prepositions – by, on, at...
Simple plural (-s, -es) – he walks.
Possessive (- ‘s) – Trudi’s boat.
Uncontracted copula – Stuart is acting.
Articles – the box, a dog.

Illustrative background for 7-12 ?? "content

7-12

Regular past tense (-ed) – I walked.
Third person regular verbs (-s) – Dave types.
Third person irregular verbs – Suz teaches.
Auxiliary verb ‘be’ – I am, he was, you are.
Contracted copula – Stuart’s acting.
Contracted auxiliary verb ‘be’ – I’m, you’re.

Katamba

Katamba argues that this order is the same regardless of parental input.

1Language Levels

1.1Assessment Objectives

1.1.1Assessment Objectives

1.2Lexis

1.2.1Introduction

1.2.2Common, Proper, Abstract & Concrete Nouns

1.2.3Collective Nouns

1.2.4Adjectives

1.2.5Main, Auxiliary & Copular Verbs

1.2.6Dynamic & Stative Verbs

1.2.7Transitive, Intransitive, Active & Passive Verbs

1.2.8Mood of Verbs

1.2.9Adverbs

1.2.10Personal, Possessive & Reflexive Pronouns

1.2.11Relative & Demonstrative Pronouns

1.2.12Determiners

1.2.13Conjunctions

1.2.14Synonyms, Antonyms & Phonological Features

1.2.15End of Topic Test - Lexis

1.3Grammar

1.3.1Morphology

1.3.2Clauses

1.3.3Phrases

1.3.4Present Tense

1.3.5Past Tense

1.3.6Future Tense

1.3.7End of Topic Test - Grammar

1.4Semantics & Pragmatics

1.4.1Semantics

1.4.2Pragmatics

1.5Discourse Structure, Graphology & Orthography

1.5.1Discourse Structure

1.5.2Graphology & Orthography

1.5.3End of Topic Test - Semantics, Graphology etc.

2Language, The Individual & Society

2.1Children’s Language Development

2.1.1The Exam

2.1.2Phonemes, Vocal Tract & Articulation

2.1.3Writing About Phonemes

2.1.4Phonological Simplification

2.1.5A Child's First Year & Consonant Acquisition

2.1.6Beginning Stages of Language

2.1.7Lexical Development

2.1.8Stages of Development

2.1.9End of Topic Test - Child Language Development

2.2Children's Language Development - Theories

2.2.1Behaviourism

2.2.2Interactionism

2.2.3Challenging Interactionism

2.2.4Nativism

2.2.5Nativism - Exam Answer

2.2.6Cognitivism

2.2.7Social Constructionism

2.2.8Writing About Spoken Acquisition

2.2.9End of Topic Test - Development Theories

2.3Literacy Development: Reading

2.3.1Introduction

2.3.2Phonics vs Whole Word

2.3.3Debates in Reading

2.3.4Modelling Reading Acquisition

2.3.5Other Reading Theories

2.3.6End of Topic Test - Reading

2.4Literacy Development: Writing

2.4.1Orthography

2.4.2Kroll's Theory

2.4.3Barclay's Theory

2.4.4Creativity vs Accuracy

2.4.5Other Writing Theories

2.4.6The Exam

2.4.7End of Topic Test - Writing

3Language Diversity & Change

3.1The Importance of Gendered Language

3.1.1Writing About Gender

3.1.2Dominance Theory

3.1.3Interruptions - Zimmerman & West

3.1.4Deficit Theory

3.1.5Difference Model

3.1.6Difference Model - Men

3.1.7Diversity Model

3.1.8End of Topic Test - Gendered Language

3.2Social Groups

3.2.1Writing About Social Groups

3.2.2Social Class

3.2.3Social Class 2

3.2.4Age

3.2.5Age - Teen Speak

3.2.6Milroy’s Belfast Study

3.2.7Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard Study

3.2.8End of Topic Test - Social Groups

3.3Occupational Groups

3.3.1Writing About Occupational Groups

3.3.2Jargon

3.3.3Conversations

3.3.4Hierarchy & Power

3.3.5End of Topic Test - Occupational Groups

3.4Accents & Dialects

3.4.1Writing About Accent & Dialect

3.4.2Introduction to Accents & Dialects

3.4.3Accents - Matched Guide Experiment

3.4.4Accents - Received Pronunciation & Brummie

3.4.5Dialects - Dialectal Variations

3.4.6Accent & Dialect Case Study - London

3.4.7End of Topic Test - Accents & Dialects

3.5Language Change

3.5.1Writing About Language Change

3.5.2Modelling Change

3.5.3Modelling Change 2

3.5.4Lexical Change

3.5.5Semantic Change

3.5.6End of Topic Test - Language Change

3.6History of English

3.6.1Old English

3.6.2Old English 2

3.6.3Middle English

3.6.4Middle English 2

3.6.5Early Modern English

3.6.6Late Modern English

3.6.7Present Day English

3.6.8Global English

3.6.9American English

3.6.10Modelling Global English

3.6.11End of Topic Test - History of English

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