Summary
Highlights
Around age two, children use 'telegraphic speech,' omitting non-critical words to convey meaning, similar to old telegrams. Examples include 'give milk' instead of 'please give me the milk.'
Overregularization occurs when children apply grammatical rules too broadly, even to irregular words (e.g., 'goed' instead of 'went,' 'hitted' instead of 'hit,' or 'feets' instead of 'feet'). This demonstrates an attempt to understand language rules, not imitation.
Around six or seven years old, children develop metalinguistic awareness, the ability to reflect on and play with language. This is when they begin to understand jokes, puns, and wordplay.
Toddlers commonly make errors called overextension and underextension. Overextension is using a word too broadly (e.g., calling all four-legged animals 'doggy'). Underextension is using a word too narrowly (e.g., 'dolly' referring only to their favorite doll).
Newborns, in their first two to three months, possess the remarkable ability to distinguish all 100 phonemes from every language in the world. This ability diminishes by age one, as children become attuned only to the phonemes of the languages they are exposed to.
During the first six months, language development is characterized by crying, cooing, and laughing, which eventually transitions into babbling. Babbling, like 'la la la' or 'ba ba ba,' is a repetitive consonant-vowel combination and the first indication of a child's attempt to learn to talk.
A baby's first words, often around 10-11 months, frequently resemble babbling, such as 'mama' or 'papa.' By 18 months, toddlers have a vocabulary of around 3 to 50 words. Receptive vocabulary (understanding) is always larger than productive vocabulary (speaking) for all ages.
Around two years of age, a significant vocabulary spurt occurs. By kindergarten (age six or seven), children possess a vocabulary of about 10,000 words. This rapid acquisition suggests an innate ability for language learning, supported by the concept of a critical period for language exposure.
Around age two, children develop 'fast mapping,' the ability to learn a new word after only one exposure. This is a unique skill that adults do not possess, allowing toddlers to add 20-30 words to their vocabulary weekly.