6-8 months
- 2-4 months - The first stage of acquisition for a child is named 'babbling.' This consists of a child making 'cooing' sounds which sound very much like grunts and sighs, usually as a result of interactions with the caregiver
- 4 months - Laughter usually occurs around now
- 4-7 months - This stage is called 'vocal play' where children experiment with different pitches, volumes and sounds. They make noises such as squealing, growling and yelling to attract attention
- 7 months - Called 'canonical babbling' where children form syllable-like sentences by opening and closing their jaw, lips and moving their tongue. Repeated sequences are produced such as 'dada' or 'nanana'. All of this language is more likely to be performed when the caregiver is present as it stimulates interaction, however it does happen when the child is alone
9-18 months
- 10 months - Infants start to mumble recognisable words that are common in their surrounding environment. If it does not come from their local language, it is common that they are trying to explain their emotions. Overextension and underextension occurs when a child hasn't quite grasped what a word means e.g. 'dog' for all animals or 'teddy' used for a particular bear
18-24 months
- Infants associate and attach words together - often in pairs in order to start forming short syntax and phrases.
24-30 months
- Infants form 'multiwords' but are at the early stages of forming sytax with semantic meaning. They often leave out determiners, modals and verbal auxilaries. E.g. instead of saying 'I can see a cow' they would say 'See cow'
30+ months
- Grammatical and functional structures of an infants language. Multiple clause sentences become more popular
