Time Line of Language Development
first few days |
Children can distinguish the melody and rhythm of the language they hear from those of other languages. |
7 months |
Hearing children will start to babble (bababa, dududu); children exposed to sign language will begin a similar activity with their hands. The sounds may be those of any language in the world. |
10 months |
The sounds used in babbling reduce to just those of the target language. |
1 year |
The first words begin to be heard, including words for specific people (mama) and objects (doggie). |
1.5 years |
Children already know about 50 words and start to combine them in two-word phrses like more cookie and see daddy. Learning rate is about 5 words per day |
2.5 years |
Sentences rapidly start to grow beyond two words and increase in grammatical complexity. |
7 years |
The human capacity to learn language in this particular way begins to gradually fade. |