AQA A-level English Language (7702) · Childrens Language Development
Mini-Lesson
Children's Language Development
How do children go from crying to full sentences in a few years? This topic covers the stages of spoken and written development and the theories that explain them.
You will meet the stages of speech (babbling to telegraphic), the domains of development, and the theorists Skinner, Chomsky, Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner. Press Start.
Spoken · stages
The stages of spoken development
Children's speech develops in broadly predictable stages (ages are approximate):
Holophrastic / one-word (~12 months) — single words carry whole meanings (milk!).
Two-word (~18 months) — simple pairs with emerging word order (daddy go).
Telegraphic (~2 years) — short content-word utterances, function words often missing (mummy sock off).
Post-telegraphic — grammatical words, inflections and complex clauses appear.
Watch the terms: holophrastic = one word standing for a whole idea; telegraphic = like an old telegram, keeping content words and dropping the grammatical glue.
Quick check
Name the stage
?A two-year-old says want more juice, keeping content words but omitting the auxiliary and article. This utterance is characteristic of which stage?
Spoken · domains
Domains of development
Development happens across several domains at once:
Phonological — mastering sounds; simplifications like deletion and substitution (wabbit for rabbit).
Lexical / semantic — building vocabulary; overextension (calling all animals dog) and underextension.
Grammatical — word order, inflections and virtuous errors such as goed or sheeps (over-applying a rule).
Pragmatic — learning to use language socially: turn-taking, politeness, requests.
Virtuous errors are strong evidence that children learn rules, not just imitate — a key argument against pure behaviourism.
Quick check
Explain the error
?A child says I runned and I falled. These regularised past-tense forms are best described as:
Theory · nature vs nurture
Skinner and Chomsky
Two foundational, opposing theories:
Skinner (behaviourism): children learn language through imitation and reinforcement — praise and correction shape correct forms. Criticised because it cannot easily explain virtuous errors or the speed of acquisition.
Chomsky (nativism): humans are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and an innate universal grammar. Evidence: children produce novel sentences they have never heard, and the input is often too limited (the poverty of the stimulus).
Three further theorists stress thinking and interaction:
Piaget (cognitive): language develops alongside cognitive readiness; children cannot use a concept until they understand it (e.g. object permanence before words for absent things).
Vygotsky (social interactionist): language grows through social interaction; the zone of proximal development is what a child can do with help from a more knowledgeable other.
Bruner: proposed the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS) — the scaffolding carers provide, as in shared book-reading and routines.
Link them: Bruner's LASS is a deliberate counterpart to Chomsky's LAD — support, not just an innate device.
Quick check
Whose concept?
?A parent reads a picture book, pausing so the child fills in the next word, gradually reducing help. This scaffolding within the child's zone of proximal development draws chiefly on the ideas of:
Written development
Written language development
Writing develops later than speech and draws on it. A widely used model describes stages such as:
Pre-phonemic / scribble — marks and mock letters imitating writing.
Semi-phonetic and phonetic — spelling by sound (woz for was).
Transitional and conventional — standard spellings and punctuation become secure.
Children also learn to handle genre and audience in writing, moving from personal recounts to more structured, reader-aware texts. Kroll described broad phases (preparation, consolidation, differentiation and integration) in children's writing.
Note: spoken and written development interact — early writing often mirrors the child's spoken grammar and vocabulary.
Match it
Match each theorist to their idea
Tap a theorist on the left, then their key idea on the right.