nicole kotras masters thesis

Plays language games (pat-a-cake, peek-a-boo).
12-18 months. Single-word stage
Mastery of Comprehension
The infant/young child:
Shows gross discrimination between dissimilar sounds (bell vs. dog vs.
mother or father's voice);
Understands basic body parts, names of common objects;
Acquires understanding of some new words each week;
Identifies simple objects (baby, ball) from a group of objects or pictures;
Understands up to 150 words by age 18 months.
Mastery of Expression
The infant/young child:
Uses single words (mean age of first word is 11 months, by age 18 months,
child is using up to 20 words);
Uses sentences of four or more syllables;
"Talks" to toys, self, or others, using long patterns of jargon and occasional
words;
Reacts to music vocally;
Approximately 25% of utterances are intelligible;
All vowels articulated correctly;
Initial and final consonants often omitted.
12-24 months. Two-word messages stage
Mastery of Comprehension
The young child:
Responds to simple directions ("Give me the ball");
Responds to action commands ("Sit down");
Understands pronouns (me, him, her, you);
Begins to understand complex sentences ("When we go to the shop I'll buy
you a sweet").
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