Early childhood language: what to expect and when to ask for help.

From birth on, children are programmed to develop speech and language. The first five years are most critical but language development continues throughout early childhood and on into adolescence. During the first five years stimulation of language development is important as the brain is both developing new nerve cells as well as multiple connections between nerve cells to serve the function of language both expressive and receptive. Lack of stimulation during this time could result in a child making slower progress or end up with poor communication skills. Later, we provide some tips for parents on how to help with language development but the basic suggestions are to spend lots of time talking, singing and reading to your child.

In the early stages of language development, the brain is programmed to attend to speech sounds and begin to mimic them. Early on babies like to make sounds up on their own. Later they attempt to repeat sounds/words that they are exposed to from their environment.

Children usually say their first words between nine and 18 months old. The most common first words are either “mama” or “dada’. What’s kind of interesting is no matter what language children are raised in, the first words usually reference either mother or father. By the age of 18 months a child usually has a vocabulary of 50 to 150 words.

By two they can probably use over 200 words and understand about 1,000 words. By about 18 months children begin to put a couple of words together to form a sentence sometimes referred to as “telegraphic speech” such as “Mommy ball” or “Mommy throw ball”.

Around 3 years of age, children begin to use language for all kinds of things. They are not only trying to get things by asking they are talking about past experiences and even beginning to use it to pretend. By preschool (4 ½) they are beginning to understand and use the rules of language to express possession of something, connect thoughts and quantify. There language is becoming more like that of adults.