Language acquisition is one of the most visible and important achievements in early childhood. Within a few months and with no explicit instruction, babies progress from the stage of uncertain pronunciation of individual words to the fluent expression of whole sentences. Generally, children tend to develop receptive language abilities before their verbal or expressive language skills evolve (Bjorklund & Causey, 2017). The receptive language is the internal processing and understanding of speech. As receptive language continues to expand, expressive language began to slowly progress. Normally, expressive language is thought to start at the preverbal stage, where infants use gestures and vocalizations to communicate their intentions to others. The period of 6-7 to 10-11 years of age is usually referred to the elementary school age (Henry et al., 2018). During this time, significant changes occur in the functioning of the child’s brain. This causes the children to independently progress and undifferentiated behavior to become goal-oriented.
It is essential for parents to monitor their child’s stages of speech progression in order to prevent possible abnormalities. According to various data, babies start to use the indicative gesture at the age of 9-13 months (Petersen, 2017). Its appearance marks an advanced stage in the children’s development of social and communicative abilities. Scientific sources emphasize that kids who used a significant amount of signaling gestures in the second year of life had better speech skills later in life, compared to counterparts who used fewer pointing gestures (Petersen, 2017). Children begin to scream at approximately two months of age, these sounds are the basis for further speech development. At four months of age, the infant begins attempting to speak, and from about 16 months of age, the kids steadily use gestures in conjunction with their first words (Petersen, 2017). The child develops language ability better with sufficient support from the parents.
References
Bjorklund, D. F., & Causey, K. B. (2017). Children′ s thinking: Cognitive development and individual differences. Sage.
Henry, L., Farmer, C., Manwaring, S. S., Swineford, L., & Thurm, A. (2018). Trajectories of cognitive development in toddlers with language delays. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 81, 65-72.
Petersen, A. (2017). Brain maturation and cognitive development: Comparative and cross-cultural perspectives. Routledge.