Human Growth and Development / Unit 3 HGD 0367 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Language Milestones
The idea
Early language follows a reliable order. Crying is present from birth. Cooing, vowel sounds, arrives by about two months, with early turn-taking. Babbling, repeated consonant-vowel sounds, begins around four to seven months. Gestures and pointing appear at nine to twelve months. First words come around twelve months, often as holophrases. Telegraphic two-word speech follows at eighteen to twenty-four months, with a vocabulary spurt that carries a child from about fifty to two hundred words by two and up to a thousand by three.
In practice
One child's first three years on a line: cries, coos, babbles, points, words, two-word phrases, and a rush of new vocabulary.
Where people slip
Throughout, understanding runs ahead of speaking, so a child who says little may understand a great deal. The order is similar across cultures, which suggests a biological base, while the ages vary. Pronunciation lags too: some English consonants are not mastered until five or six.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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