Acquisition of Language by a Child: 5 Stages

The following points highlight the five main stages involved in acquisition of language by a child. The stages are: 1. Screaming 2. Babbling 3. Sound Imitation 4. Verbal Understanding 5. Verbal Utterances.

Stage # 1. Screaming or Crying (0-6 months):

This stage begins with the birth cry which is purely a reflex activity due to the mechanism of blood oxygenation. During the first few months of child’s sound produced are of the nature of reflexes.

Crying occurs naturally and intensely at the beginning. But gradually crying decreases by third and fourth month. The specific needs of the child cannot be ascertained from his cry in the beginning. The child produces sounds of the nature of grunts, cries, gasps etc. In the beginning, crying helps in respiration. Gradually in order to fulfil various physical, internal and external needs the child cries. At the age of seven weeks usually the child’s cries when he feels hungry.

The infant usually cries due to hunger, pain in respiration, stomach ache, strong sensory stimulation and failure etc. Some parents say that they can explain cries and even birth cries of children and attach meaning to it. But it is not the cry itself but the knowledge of the situation that make them understand the cries.

From crying gradually language develops. So it is said to be the first stage of language development. Till 7-8 months of birth the infant can’t speak any languages, he expresses his needs, desires and demands through crying. During Crying some parts of the body are activated.

When the child cries, immediate attention should be given to him and the needs should be fulfilled. It has been observed that the vowel or vowel like sounds are made during the first weeks of life and increase rapidly in variety during the first year. At these stages vowels are more found than consonants. Consonants develop later and shortly afterwards consonant vowel combinations occur.

Stage # 2. Babbling (3-9 months):

The child produces units of utterances called babbling that differ from one situation to another. This is also called explosive sounds. In addition to cries some simple sounds are heard during the first months of life. Analysis of early sounds indicate that vowels predominate in the first years of life. These vowel sounds serve as a raw material to the development of language. Babbling or explosive sounds are unlearned are universally found in all nationalities and races.

These explosive sounds are produced spontaneously. After teeth come out, consonants start developing. With the development of speech muscles, the use of vowels in the sphere of speech development of child gradually decreases. Babbling is more found when the child is alone; he gets pleasure by hearing what he says. Sometimes he babbles to communicate with others. Sometimes babbling accidentally becomes a meaningful word like Ba-Ba-Ma-Ma-Da-Da. Babbling vocal sounds are universal responses during infancy.

Babbling starts from the third/fourth month when consonants are uttered for the first time. The babbling stage is probably due to intra organic stimulation and occurs especially after meals or after walking from sleep. By the second month, the child turns towards sounds. By the six month the child distinguishes between friendly and unfriendly sounds. In the babbling stage the child does not know the meaning of what he is saying and why he is saying so. Babbling occurs usually when the child is excited by seeing or hearing something, speech requires exposure to people who speak but language does not.

The baby’s sound stimulates him and he repeats those sounds he uttered. Thus, when he utters Ba, and hears the same, he again says Ba. Thus it becomes BaBa. In this manner he makes repetitive sounds like BaBa, DaDa, MaMa. Parents also reinforce certain patterns of babbling. Babbling also helps in the exercise of neurological and motor mechanisms of speech. The early babblings of babies who are deaf soon decrease in frequency and disappear altogether because they do not get any reinforcement as normal children do.

Study of sound patterns of babies of different cultures show that babbling is common in all cultures and the basic sound are present in all babblings of babies of all cultures are more or less similar. The infants sound making is further reinforced by the talks of mother and grandmother with the baby at different occasions like while changing his dresses, feeding him, massaging oil on his body or while making him sleep.

In babe dada vowels are combined with consonants then with practice these sounds are produced. Here he produces sounds at will using to his ability to control the flow of air in the vocal cord. So babbling is a form of vocal gymnastics, voluntarily produced, but with no real speech meaning or association value for the baby. Babbling occurs from 3-12 months with peak around the eighth month.

However development of vocal mechanism determines the early development of speech and the incentive given to him to speak. Hence there may be slight individual difference in the timing of babbling. Babbling is a form of play speech where sounds are uttered for the mere delight of uttering them.

From babbling normal speech develops through four processes:

(1) Pronunciation

(2) Comprehension

(3) Vocabulary

(4) Sentence Formation.

i. Pronunciation:

The baby hears his babbling and talks of others and imitates them to pronounce words. After the development of concepts the child makes pronunciation more accurately.

ii. Comprehension:

Comprehension includes the correct association of meanings with word symbol, the selection of the correct meaning suggested by the context, the organisation and retention of meanings, the ability to reason one’s way through smaller ideas segments and the ability to grasp, the meaning of a larger unitary idea.

Thorndike describes reading comprehension simply as thinking. For comprehension a child needs to understand language patterns, to recognise the structural elements composing a sentence and. to perceive syntactic inter relationship of these elements. In other words, the pupil must understand syntax for the development of Comprehension.

Davis (1944, 1972) viewed that two general mental abilities underlie comprehension. They are the ability to remember word meanings and the ability to research with concepts and hence with words. Comprehension is a thinking process. It is a thinking through reading. It is dependent upon the learner’s basic Cognitive and intellectual skills; upon his experience, upon his language skills. Readers use their thinking and verbal rearing skill to read, get main idea for details, for organisation, for evaluation and for appreciation.

During the period of comprehension the concepts are developed. Hence pronunciation becomes easy. The comprehension stage starts from 10-12 months and continues upto 18th month. Whatever the child hears he does not understand. Even he does not know the meaning of the words he pronounces.

iii. Development of Vocabulary:

Between 18 months to 24 months a normal child usually controls 250 to 300 words. But an intelligent child is able to control and even speak more than double of these words. But a subnormal child’s vocabulary is much less than a normal ones.

iv. Sentence Formation:

Up to the eighteenth months a normal child usually speaks one word sentence like water, Mama, Eat, Papa, etc. Thereafter he speaks 2 and 3 words sentences such as Drink water. Go home, sleep with Mama, where is Mama, where is elephant etc. Initially there may be some mistakes in sentence formation but gradually it is rectified.

Gradually he is able to understand the meaning of different words. When a two year old child is snubbed, he says “Mama I am angry with you.” So now he learns to apply the words rightly. He also learns to understand the meaning of words by learning from the gestures and postures of adults.

Stage # 3. Sound Initation or Echo Reaction Stage:

The sound that occurs from babbling gradually increases in quantity. When the child is 8/9 months old, he not only initiates his own sounds, but also sounds of others. Thus he repeats the same sound over and over again, the earlier initation being that of his own words produced by his organic conditions. By the 9th month children pay attention to some familiar sentences. At the 10th month, the child produces the kinds of sounds. The circular reaction or echoic sounds are produced because the child has learnt to make some kinds of sounds i.e., association of vowels with some consonants.

The child learns his own voice which comes as a stimulation to him for repeating the sounds. By this procedure he is caught in his own trap unless the circular reaction is broken by some external attraction. The first word that the child utters is earliest by 09 months and later by 12 months. The first word here implies the word which the child utters after understand the meaning and with his knowledge.

How can this be checked? If the child is making an appropriate response to a question or making correct application of what he says, it will be understand that he has understood the meaning of the words he is uttering. When you ask a baby “Where you want to go”? He answers “To the Park”. Here he has understood the question and he knows what he is saying.

In the echo reaction stage hearing and speaking goes on in a circular manner. By this methods the speech muscles develop. For efficient language development, this method is very effective.

By the 10th month, the child imitates what his mother speaks.

Stage # 4. Verbal Understanding:

This stage starts at the end of the first year. In this stage the child begins to make specific movements in response to sounds made by others. For instance if the parents say ‘Come’ when they want the child to come to them (or they may gesture by hand), the Child understands the meaning of Coming. Thus this word ‘Comet becomes a signal for coming. Similarly, when the child is laughing, if Mama says laugh, laugh, incourse of time this word becomes a signal for laughter.

The behaviour of the child is reinforced by the utterances of parents and so he is motivated to know that this means “Come”, this means “go”, this means ‘laugh’ etc. The child imitates the person who stay with him, communicate and interact with him. If parents pronounce any word inaccurately the child speaks the same.

A baby of 18 months who was being taken care by an illiterate rural woman in the absence of his mother used to imitate all wrong and faulty pronunciations made by that woman. Hence children should hear correct pronunciations. Otherwise their language will be defective. Parents should see that nobody should make wrong and faulty pronunciations or speak incorrect sentences, infront of the child.

Stage # 5. Verbal Utterances:

The Stage of verbal utterances is generally reached by the first half of the second year. Hence the child acquires an active vocabulary not being contend with the imitation of other people’s sound. The child says ‘BHO, BHO’, when he sees a dog.

Speech is acquired through association theory. Learning plays a major role here. Simulus variable, response variable and reinforcement variable play significant role in the development of language.

Studies of children’s vocabulary development consistently reveal a general trend which may be summarised as follows:

1. At the first year of life words are acquired by the baby rather slowly i.e., three words in average.

2. 18 months—19 words used.

3. 19 months—22 words used.

Towards the end of the second year or beginning of the third year, rapid increase in vocabulary takes place. In a study it increased from 22 words to 272 words only after seven months.

Mother’s voice influences the language development of the child. The child comes to associate certain sound patterns with various activities.

According to Lindzey and Aronson, the minimal criterion of language is twofold:

1. Language combines two or more representative gestures or noises purposefully for a single effect.

2. It uses the same gestures in different combinations for different effects changing readily with circumstances.

Menyuk (1971) has given the following stages of Language Development.

1. The fact period (0—6 months).

2. The babbling Period (6—9 months).

3. The Jargon period (9 months)—Some initiation of general language like pattern can be identified.

4. The quie Period (9 months—1 year) There is decrease in vocalization but language habits do continue to develop.

5. The hollophrastic stage (1—2 years) The child uses single words to indicate whole phrase.

6. The spurt in word development (2 years)—There is a substantial increase in vocabulary.

7. The Sentence Period—(3 years)—The child uses sentences containing grammatical features that anticipate the adults use of language rules.

8. The child uses sentences of all types (3—5 years).

9. There is an increase in the use of Complex structures and variety in sentences. The length of the sentence also increases.

All the above stages are distinct. While one stage regularly proceeds another for all children, not all children reach each state at the same age. Children of all nationalities go through the same stages of speech development.

A child cannot learn verbal responses until he is matured enough and learn them. Maturation sets the pace in this regard.

Jersild (1946) holds that like other aspects of development there are discernible cyclic variations in rate of speech development during which the child consolidating his gains and periods in which other aspects of his total development presumably has pre-eminence.