Child Language Acquisition

15 Months

-Bye Mummy

-Isee

-Allgone

These utterances suggest to me that the child sees most sentences as all one word. It also suggests that the child does not yet understand personal pronouns. The words suggest that the child cannot comprehend the thought of another human being other than their parents at this young age.

20 Months

-All fall down

-Teddy tired

-Gone, where mummy gone?

-More juice

At 20 months I can start to observe that the child realises that there are pauses in between words. There is also a beginning to understanding prepositions as the child starts to use them. Although the child does not yet understand how to pose questions correctly, as it uses imperatives instead of question words. There is also a start to using concrete nouns such as Teddy and Juice.

28 Months

-Teddy's hat came off

-Harry's got a big, big green truck

At 28 months there is a clear use of simple sentences as the child's primary source of communication. The child also begins to describe things; using adjectives. It also starts to understand that things belong to people and that there are other people other than themselves and their parents.

36 Months

-Little Luke hit me, he did

-I am going to see Harriet another day tomorrow

-I don't like faces, I want to see children's ITV

At 36 months the child begins to understand how and when to use personal pronouns. there is also a beginning to using negation. In addition the child begins to feel that it has certain needs and wants.

40 Months

-Look at my knee. I felled over in the playground

-Once upon a time there was a little girl and she got beautiful hair and then the monster killed her and then she got dead and then and then the beautiful fairy came and made them better again

At 40 months the child starts to use compound sentences. However the child still does not make cohesive grammatically correct sentences or understand what irregular verb endings are and when to use them.