Dec 24 Language Development

Babies go through several different stages of language development. A newborn has reflective communication, meaning the baby communicates with cries, movement, and facial expressions. At tw0 months old, a baby will start using noise to communicate. For example coos, fussing, crying and maybe even laughing. Between three months and six months a baby introduces new sounds to its form of language. Babies at this age will begin to squeal, growl, coons, trills, and make some vowel sounds. At around six to ten months old, a baby can produce both vowel and consonant sounds and babble some small syllables. This is what most parents and doctors call babbling. From around ten months old to a year old your baby should be able to understand or comprehend the meanings of small words. A ten month to twelve month old can also babble in a way that sounds like speech, they start to communicate in their own way. To people who are around the baby a lot they can distinguish different sounds and decode what the baby wants. This age group with also us their hands to make gestures indicating what they point, for instance pointing at a toy they want to play with. At a year old a baby will say its first word. These words are part of the language, not just baby babble. From around thirteen to eighteen months a baby will expand its vocabulary to around 50 words. At eighteen months learning new words increases greatly, babies at this age are capable of learning three to four new words a day. But on the other hand some babies at this age haven't even said their first words. The list of development continues but what fascinated me the most was that this is the same basic pattern for all babies, all over the world, and have different native languages.