The 3 stages of language and speech development

Stage 1: Early listening and the beginning of understanding

Children start to learn some of the skills they will need to learn language many months before they are able to say their first words. From the earliest days of their lives, babies are learning to recognise what voices in their language sound like compared to other sounds they can hear (sounds such as cars, music, the washing machine, etc). Babies must learn to recognise individual word patterns in the language used around them and then to learn the meaning that we give these word patterns. For example, babies must learn that the sounds “m-i-l-k” relate to the drink which they have every day.

Because all these things happen before babies say any words themselves, you can think of this part of language development as being like the roots of a tree sapling, which start to grow before the tree has sprouted above the ground. Just like the tree’s roots, a young baby’s language is starting to develop, although we may not be able to see the outward signs of it yet. At this stage, children are learning to understand words, and you may start to notice that they will look at an object or picks it up when they hear the word – for example, if an adult asks, “Where’s teddy?”, the child looks at or points to teddy.

During this stage, it is important that we give children lots of language input – just as we would give the plant lots of water – to help their language to grow strong “roots”. We can do this by talking to them throughout the day, playing with them and talking about what we and they are doing, looking at books together and naming the pictures.

Stage 2 – Understanding continues to grow and first words appear

Over time, children begin to understand more and more words- you can think of this like the roots of their “language tree” growing and growing deeper and wider under the ground.

Receptive language – the words a child understands

The language which a child is able to understand is called their “receptive language”. At this stage of language development, children can understand just one word at a time – their receptive language is said to be at a single word level. If a child at this single word stage hears a sentence that is very long, they will find it difficult to understand. However they should be able to follow some simple instructions that contain one key word – a key word is the most important word in the sentence, which gives us the information we need to understand the sentence. So, for example, they should be able to interpret and understand short sentences with single key words such as, “Where are your shoes?” or  “Do you want more?”.

At around 1 year of age, most children will start to say their first words (this may be later for deaf children or other issues). This is a bit like the first shoots of the “language tree” beginning to grow. Just like a young tree – which has lots of roots underground but only a few small shoots above the ground – children can understand many more words than they are able to say out loud at this stage.

Expressive language – the words a child uses

The language which children use themselves is sometimes called their “expressive language”. At first, children will use only one word at a time when they talk – we say that their expressive language is at a single word level. For example they might say the word “juice” to ask for a drink. At this stage, children’s speech is not completely clear like an adult’s speech would be. Children will often use some incorrect sounds, or miss sounds out from their words (for example, “juice” might sound like “doos” or “ju”), and usually the child’s close family can understand them better than other people do.

Stage 3 – Understanding phrases and putting words together

At around about the time of their second birthday, most children start to be able to understand more than 1 word at a time. They can now understand sentences that contain 2 key words (or 2 important bits of information), for example, “Give me your shoes and coat” or “Where’s the big cup?”

Once they can understand 2 words together, children will then begin to use 2 words together in their own spoken language too. For example they now might say “Juice please” or “More juice” to ask for a drink. Their speech will still be unclear, and they may still be missing out some sounds, or using some simple sounds instead of sounds that are more difficult for them to say (for example, the sounds ‘f’ and ‘s’ are difficult to say at this stage and many children use a different sound, e.g. ‘b’ or ‘d’ instead – e.g. instead of “sun” the child might say “dun”). We will explain more about speech sounds later in this lesson.

Just like a tree always needs water and sunlight to grow, children continue to need lots of language input to help their language to keep growing. As children’s language progresses, adults can change the type of language that they use with them. For example, we could use slightly longer phrases now, or introduce new words that your child hasn’t heard before. If your child says “apple”, we can say that back to them, but add an extra word – for example, we might say “Yes, a green apple”, or “It’s a big apple” or “Yummy apple” – to show your child how to make longer phrases.

With this encouragement, children’s understanding of language (receptive language) and the language they use themselves (expressive language) will continue to grow. By the time they are about 3 years old most children can understand sentences which contain 3 key words (or three important pieces of information, e.g. “Give me the big blue plate”) and they can use sentences which are about 3 words long (for example, they might now say “More juice mummy” or “Me want drink” to ask for a drink).

Like the first branches of a tree starting to grow, your child is now learning to make some short sentences. Your child can now understand and use lots of different types of words, such as verbs (words that name an action, such as “jump”, “walk”, “sit”, “eat”, “sleep”), prepositions (these are words that describe a place, such as “in”, “on”, “under”), pronouns (words that we use instead of names, e.g. “he”, “she”, “I”, “me”, “we”, “they”) and other descriptive words such as colours, sizes and amounts (“big”, “little”, “more”, “less”, “some”) and so on.

At this stage, children’s sentences may not always be correct and they may make mistakes with their grammar. By grammar we mean the way in which we put sentences together, and grammar includes the little words or word-endings we use to give our sentences meaning, such as “and”, “the”, “-ing”, “-ed”, and so on. For example, your child might say “Me want one” instead of “I want one”, or they might use a sentence like “I go park mummy” when they really mean “I went to the park with mummy”.

Over time, children will learn to use these smaller grammatical elements correctly, but it is normal for children to continue making some mistakes with these as their sentences become longer and more complicated. Your role is to demonstrate or ‘model’ the correct grammar for them by repeating back to them what they have said with appropriate grammar – for example if your child says “Want juice”, then say back to them “Do you want some juice?”

How deafness affects a child’s progress through these stages

As we have mentioned throughout the Let’s Listen and Talk programme, deafness will affect a child’s rate of progress through these stages of language and speech development, although the stages will remain the same. In particular, their hearing technology plays a crucial roles in enabling them to access the sounds of speech around them and to hear the sounds they are making – so it is crucial to ensure that:

• your child’s hearing is regularly tested by audiologists so they can programme the technology to your child’s specific needs, taking account of any changes
• that your child’s hearing technology is working effectively by testing it every day, and
• that your child is wearing their technology during every waking moment to access speech sounds all day, every day

And, as we have also mentioned previously, it is also important to always bear in mind your child’s ‘hearing age’ – how long they have been able to access sounds using their technology – as this will affect the age at which they reach each of the 3 stages of language and speech development.

Developing speech skills

As your child is learning what words mean and how to use them to convey meaning, their speech is also developing – the way they pronounce works and the range and clarity of the sounds they use. We will take a more detailed look at speech skills in Lesson 5 of the Preschool programme.