Phonetic development in children

Language Development Chart

Age of Child	Typical Language Development
6 Months	Vocalization with intonation Responds to his name Responds to human voices without visual cues by turning his head and eyes Responds appropriately to friendly and angry tones
12 Months	Uses one or more words with meaning (this may be a fragment of a word) Understands simple instructions, especially if vocal or physical cues are given Practices inflection Is aware of the social value of speech
18 Months	Has vocabulary of approximately 5-20 words Vocabulary made up chiefly of nouns Some echolalia (repeating a word or phrase over and over) Much jargon with emotional content Is able to follow simple commands
24 Months	Can name a number of objects common to his surroundings Is able to use at least two prepositions, usually chosen from the following: in, on, under Combines words into a short sentence-largely noun-verb combinations (mean) length of sentences is given as 1.2 words Approximately 2/3 of what child says should be intelligible Vocabulary of approximately 150-300 words Rhythm and fluency often poor Volume and pitch of voice not yet well-controlled Can use two pronouns correctly: I, me, you, although me and I are often confused My and mine are beginning to emerge Responds to such commands as “show me your eyes (nose, mouth, hair)”
36 Months	Use pronouns I, you, me correctly Is using some plurals and past tenses Knows at least three prepositions, usually in, on, under Knows chief parts of body and should be able to indicate these if not name Handles three word sentences easily Has in the neighborhood of 900-1000 words About 90% of what child says should be intelligible Verbs begin to predominate Understands most simple questions dealing with his environment and activities Relates his experiences so that they can be followed with reason Able to reason out such questions as “what must you do when you are sleepy, hungry, cool, or thirsty?” Should be able to give his sex, name, age Should not be expected to answer all questions even though he understands what is expected
48 Months	Knows names of familiar animals Can use at least four prepositions or can demonstrate his understanding of their meaning when given commands Names common objects in picture books or magazines Knows one or more colors Can repeat 4 digits when they are given slowly Can usually repeat words of four syllables Demonstrates understanding of over and under Has most vowels and diphthongs and the consonants p, b, m, w, n well established Often indulges in make-believe Extensive verbalization as he carries out activities Understands such concepts as longer, larger, when a contrast is presented Readily follows simple commands even thought the stimulus objects are not in sight Much repetition of words, phrases, syllables, and even sounds
60 Months	Can use many descriptive words spontaneously-both adjectives and adverbs Knows common opposites: big-little, hard-soft, heave-light, etc Has number concepts of 4 or more Can count to ten Speech should be completely intelligible, in spite of articulation problems Should have all vowels and the consonants, m,p,b,h,w,k,g,t,d,n,ng,y (yellow) Should be able to repeat sentences as long as nine words Should be able to define common objects in terms of use (hat, shoe, chair) Should be able to follow three commands given without interruptions Should know his age Should have simple time concepts: morning, afternoon, night, day, later, after, while Tomorrow, yesterday, today Should be using fairly long sentences and should use some compound and some complex sentences Speech on the whole should be grammatically correct
6 Years	In addition to the above consonants these should be mastered: f, v, sh, zh, th,1 He should have concepts of 7 Speech should be completely intelligible and socially useful Should be able to tell one a rather connected story about a picture, seeing relationships Between objects and happenings
7 Years	Should have mastered the consonants s-z, r, voiceless th, ch, wh, and the soft g as in George Should handle opposite analogies easily: girl-boy, man-woman, flies-swims, blunt-sharp short-long, sweet-sour, etc Understands such terms as: alike, different, beginning, end, etc Should be able to tell time to quarter hour Should be able to do simple reading and to write or print many words
8 Years	Can relate rather involved accounts of events, many of which occurred at some time in the past Complex and compound sentences should be used easily Should be few lapses in grammatical constrictions-tense, pronouns, plurals All speech sounds, including consonant blends should be established Should be reading with considerable ease and now writing simple compositions Social amenities should be present in his speech in appropriate situations Control of rate, pitch, and volume are generally well and appropriately established Can carry on conversation at rather adult level Follows fairly complex directions with little repetition Has well developed time and number concepts

taken from - http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/language_development/

Zach (2;4) drawing a banana

Sumamry of activity, interaction and language development
Zach is trying to draw a banana, whilst his mother Halla is attempting to get him to engage in a conversation, to attempt to peruse into how much his language as developed. The father, Nick, briefly involved in the conversations as Zach demonstrates how to draw a banana. Eventually, Zach then goes onto reading a book, 'Busy Railway', just before his parents are about to have dinner.

Analysis
Something which is quite clear from the start is that Zach as already began to develop his own idiolect. He refers to his notepad as 'my little pad' , this his familiar term and he uses this term throughout the entier conversation - "where's my little pad gone?". Halla's reply of "where is your little pad?" invites conversation. Also the open question echoes the child so allows him to build on the familiarity that he has with the term "little pad" rather than simply "the book". This is a form of child-directed speech, the child-led discourse allows the child to talk more and is comfortable doing so. Open questions from his mother are evident throughout the conversation as she encourages him to converse more and expand his sentences. Children normally talk about local topics (things in their every day life) so utterances of words from their own idiolect should promote more pragmatic responses.
The use of both open and closed questions are used to generate a particular answer. for instance Halla says "3 things?" which in a way is a bit of both - not only does it invite more than just a "yes" or "no" answer, as it provides range. The question is also contextual so that Zach is able to build on what the "3 things" are. Zach responds with "here" and points at part of the drawing - the use of the paralinguistic feature is common with young children as it helps them to communicate even more efficiently.
Zach's use of the utterance "frough" instead of the standard utterance "through" helps generate evidence to the Fis phenomenon. The phenomenon states that as the child is not yet completely familiar with phonetics, children use simplification through substitution. It's clearly evident here as Zach believes he is saying "through" but "frough" is what is heard instead.
In addition, Zach calls 'bolognese', 'bolognay'. As he is not familiar with the word (which is the reason why he calls it lasagne - an example of overextension by category), he replaces the unstressed syllable with something that is easier for him.

Methodology of CLA (Child Language Acquistion)

Investigation:
The natural code-switching of bilingual children

Young bilingual children can confidently switch between one langauge to another, especially if one parent predominatly speaks one and the other speaks another e.g: a mother who speaks Punjab and a father who speaks English predominatly.

Investigation type:
To investigate this claim, I would conduct a longitudinal study of how different ages of children process the information necessary to switch from language to another but also if age is an important factor to see, how fast the children can code-switch but also how fast they can learn the basics of both languages respectively.

Method:
Take 4 children who all speak English but their home language or first langauge may be something else
Examples: French and English speaker; Punjabi and English speaker; Polish and English speaker; Somali and English speaker; Yoruba and English speaker.