by around six weeks a baby begins to study people's faces, particularly when they are talking. You may notice that infants move their mouths, copying the movements that are made when someone is talking to them.
Between two and three months an infants vocal cords and other parts of their throats have developed enough to allow them to begin cooing and making soft, exaggerated vowel sounds to show pleasure or excitement.
Between four and five months babies will begin to laugh and squeal. They also begin to experiment with the consonant sounds, particularly b, d, m, g and p. It is not long before they can put vowel sounds and consonant sounds together to form nonsense words such as 'ga-ga', 'ahpoo', etc. At this age infants can blow through their lips and may blow bubbles to practise using and controlling their lips and mouth.
At around five months infants are beginning to process the musical sound and speech patterns that they constantly hear when their caregivers speak. They will practice these sounds, imitating their first sound patterns. Infants will also begin to communicate non-verbally at this age, often clinging to their caregivers, pushing then away when they are upset and tunring their head when they do not like something.
By around seven months infants often begin taking turns 'speaking' with others instead of at the same time as others do. They may also initiate conversations with others as they begin learning how conversations between people works. Many infants will also begin to imintate sounds their caregivers make, especially animal sounds such as 'moo'.
By eight months babies will begin to connect sounds they and their caregivers make to actual ideas, e.g. 'moo' = cow , or 'ta' = thank you , and will begin to use these sounds to identify objects or convey messages. Also around this stage, babies will build on the syllables they mastered earlier and link them in understandable words such as 'da-da'. They will also continue to add new consonant sounds such a t and w.
At around one year most infants put together all the language lessons they have learned so far and will begin to say their first real words. These first words are usually the names of important people or familiar objects. Some infants have 2 or 3 words in their expressive vocabulary by one year of age, whereas others will have mastered many more. These words are often unrecognisable by anyone other than the infants main caregivers.
by two years, a toddler may be saying and repeating words, and starting to join words together. They will also chat away to themselves in their own baby language. On average a two year old has approximately 30 to 50 words in their vocabulary.
Three years old have greatly expanded language skills. During this year the length of a young child's sentence increases from around three words to five words or more by the time they are around four and they are able to express their feelings. By this time, most children have also become fully understandable and beginning to ask lots of 'why', 'when', and 'how' questions.
Most four year olds make good use of their language skills. During this year a young child masters language well enough to put sentences together into full stories. it is very common that children this age talk non-stop!
By five years children can understand and apply more difficult concepts such as 'under', 'over', 'before', 'after'. Their vocabulary can exceed 2000 words. It is not uncommon for children at this age, with normal developement, to experience difficulties pronouncing all the consonants and sounds properly in the English language.
Other forms of communication-drawing and painting:
In the same way thay children pass through other developemental stages, they also pass through drawing stages.
Typically these stages are:
- Scribble.
- Beginning to draw circles within the scribbles.
- Circular shapes become more regular/ lines are eventually added to represent features and limbs.
- Trunk and more features are added.
- Drawings become more detailed and recognisable.
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