INTRODUCTION
The milestone of how infants begin to acquire or let me say speak and respond to language comes in stages. Before we examine the stages, I want to lay emphasis on the "language ". It is not only spoken form but signs, symbols, gestures etc.
Crying stage
The first stage is the CRYING stage, here it starts from 2months to 2years . In the crying stage, children produces cries, grunts, sighs which is associated with breathing, feeding and fussing, infants begin to make comfort sounds typically to respond to pleasurable gestures by care givers.
Cooing Stage
The comfort sounds gradually results to the **COOING** stage which is the second stage, this happens at about 3-4months, the earliest comfort sounds are gone with letter versions being more like vowel-coo. Initially, comfort sounds are brief and in isolation but later separated by glottal stops. This is the stage laughter arrives at about 4months plus.
Babbling Stage
At about 4-7months, vocal play begins, the child begins to produce a series of sounds at different volumes (loud or not). At about 7months , the canonical babbling begins, this called the BABBLING stage. It is accompanied by opening and closing of jaws, lips and tongue elevations, stop-like and glide-like sounds begins, fricatives and affricates surface. The infant begins to produce monotonous sequence of sounds like "ba-ba-ba", "dee-dee-dee". These sounds are often produced by interaction with the caregivers sometimes the babies produce them in isolation on their own.
Identifying Stage
At about 10months , infant begins to recognise words especially words associated with pleasure, distress or discomfort. Within the last 3months of the first year, infants begins to name objects , actions and feelings which components are stronger at first. Children differ in how much they name objects or engage in social interaction using memorized routines. Psychologists have spent a lot of time speculating about the causes of those differences (sex, age, birth order, and socioeconomic status have all been examined).
Word Combinations
After 1year,one word sentences emerge. Generally, the syntax of the standard language is ignored and statements are in an organized one word form. General vocabulary acquisition comes within 24months, early words are acquired at the range of 1-3per week. In many cases, the rate of lexical acquisition suddenly increases to 8-10 word a week. When children are producing 10 words they are estimated to understand at least 60words and there is an average gap of 5months when a child understand 50words and when he produces 50 words .
Telegraphic Stage
About the age of 2, infants begin to apply grammatical elements gradually the sentences begin to get longer. Words combinations begin to appear. By 25months ,often all children are combining word, within such combinations, verbal inflections, verbal auxilliaries, nominal determiners are typically absent. Children who are requested to repeat sentences when teaching them simply leave out the nominals, auxiliaries, verbal inflections. The pattern of leaving out grammatical function is called the **TELEGRAPHIC** stage.
The rate of vocabulary acquisition accelerates in the 3rd year and beyond, grows to an average of 10words per day during the pre-school year.
Note: Telegraphic utterances are utterances that are minimalist i.e using least words to pass message.
The speaking process does not begin from articulation , to be able to judge a child's language acquisition is not about what the child says but what the child knows.