| first few days | Children can distinguish the melody and rhythm of the language they hear from those of other languages. |
| 7 months | Hearing children will start to babble (bababa, dududu); children exposed to sign language will begin a similar activity with their hands. The sounds may be those of any language in the world. |
| 10 months | The sounds used in babbling reduce to just those of the target language. |
| 1 year | The first words begin to be heard, including words for specific people (mama) and objects (doggie). |
| 1.5 years | Children already know about 50 words and start to combine them in two-word phrses like more cookie and see daddy. Learning rate is about 5 words per day |
| 2.5 years | Sentences rapidly start to grow beyond two words and increase in grammatical complexity. |
| 7 years | The human capacity to learn language in this particular way begins to gradually fade. |
Page constructed and maintained by Jonathan D.
Pettus
Email: [email protected]