Communication

by Feldman, R.D., Olds, S.W. and Papalia, D.E. (2008). A Child’s World; Infancy through adolescence (11th edition). McGraw-Hill Higher Education.  New York, NY. 

First Words
Linguistic Speech - Verbal expression designed to convey meaning.  For example, a young toddler may say “dada” for daddy or “mama” for mommy.

“naming explosion” – this is the time when the toddler will start to learn the names of familiar objects, which often occurs mostly with nouns.

Telegraphic Speech – Early form of sentence use consisting of only a few essential words.  For example, a toddler may say “Damma deep”, where the toddler really means “Grandma is sweeping the floor.” 

Syntax – Rules for forming sentences in a particular language.  When children are learning two different languages the rules for each language can get very confusing.  Older toddlers might omit words or parts of their speech but still be able to communicate their meaning.

Characteristics of Early Speech
Children understand grammatical relationships they cannot yet express.  They may see a dog is chasing a cat.  But they cannot yet string the words together and may say “chase cat.”

Children under-extend word meanings.  They may restrict names to a single object.  For example at home, a child may have a toy car named KooKa.  When given another toy car the child might want only to have one KooKa and refuse to give the toy car the same name.

 

Children over-extend word meanings.  Toddlers have a tendency to over-generalize a word.  For example, if the grandpa has gray hair and they see a man with gray hair on the T.V. or in the park they may also refer to the person a “grandpa.”

Children over-regularize rules.  When children first learn the rules for forming adjective from nouns, they apply them universally.  For example, a child may be looking out the window at the weather, the parent says “cloudy, windy, rainy…” the child may respond, “coldy.”

Child-Directed Speech (CDS).  A form of speech often used in talking to babies or toddlers; a high-pitched tone, exaggerated vowel sounds, short word and sentences and much repetition, often call “baby talk”.  Researchers believe, where “baby talk” and CDS are perhaps good for infants it is not so good for toddlers.  Children discover the rules of language faster when they hear complex words and sentences using appropriate grammar rules.