child language acquisition ages?

[cimorene]

Well, today we touched briefly on developmental psych, and I got to see that template for child language acquisition which has always bothered me so much:

1. babbling in first year,
2. single words around age 1,
3. two-word and "telegraphic" sentences at age 2,
4. complex sentences around 3.

I have known a few children of whom this could be said, but it's drastically off for all the children in my family. I'm on the record with "Well, actually, Mommy, I'll have water," at 11 months, and my sister was speaking in sentences before 2, although I don't remember the specifics. Many of my cousins on my mother's side - most of whom have had nothing like my obsessions with reading, writing, or language in general - talked nearly as early as I did, and earlier than my sister.

Now, I, at least, am obsessed with language and words, and always have been. So perhaps there's some kind of correlation there? But then again, my family aren't, and seem to get less outstanding at it as they age. So maybe it's just genetics? My curiosity is tremendous! And yet I can't find any actual *data* using my Wiki- and Google-fu, argh. Everybody agrees that those ages are "guidelines" and that some children are much faster or slower. Steven Pinker even admitted that some children are producing complex sentences by age two, but that's still a year off for me. I don't want vague statements like this, I want to see some data on a bell curve. And I can't seem to figure out where to find it.

Failing that kind of data, I'll take anecdotal! What about you, fandom denizens, all of you highly verbal, many of you reading and writing obsessed? What have you noticed about yourselves, your families?

Comments

[torachan]

I was saying simple words as early as six months, and was speaking in sentences before I was a year and a half.

[mecurtin]

Anecdata!

1. I talked early, I'm told. (no numbers)

2. on the other hand, my 2-years-younger brother didn't talk at all until he was almost 2. When he did start, it was with full (subject-verb, at least) sentences. My mom's theory? He didn't *need* to talk before then, big sister was talking for two! She wasn't worried, btw, though other people were. These days he'd probably have Therapy.

3. The Future of Fandom had a vocabulary of over 150 words at 15 months. I know because I wrote them down, I was so impressed (we still sometimes say "fah-fees!" for "flowers"). She has gone on to be a wordsmith in multiple languages.

4. The Distant Future of Fandom, 7 years younger, was not quite so fluent early on. Started saying "Da" at about 10 months, other vocabulary at about 12 months, but not quite as fast.

[twistedchick]

I think it depends a lot on how much the parents read and talk to the child, and on how much talking matters. I was talking before I was two, as you were, but one of my cousins didn't say complete sentences until he was nearly four -- because his mother did everything for him and anticipated his needs, so he really didn't have to. Nothing wrong with his intelligence, but he had nothing to talk about.

[ink_splotch]

There's a running family joke that my first word wasn't recorded, because I just opened my mouth at 9 months and then never closed it again. However, my dad likes to tell the story of how I and another girl ruled our daycare centre (6 months-18 months), because we could articulate our needs and wants, and so got what we wanted from the carers, whereas other children struggled to get attention.

Also, while both me and the brother who followed me spoke at quite a young age (9-12 months), my youngest brother didn't speak in sentences until he was 2 years+. I don't know how much of this was related to the fact that me and brother A were sent to daycare and brother B wasn't, so maybe he wasn't socialized in the same way?

[anatsuno]

I was speaking in complex sentences at 2, I know for sure, but I don't have much other data from other family members... I'll ask around!

[copracat]

You might look for speech pathology PhD theses, though they most likely concentrate on kids who are late to speak rather than early to speak.

How about this?

[farwing]

I started talking at 6 months (and haven't shut up since). My next-after-me sister started talking a bit later than that, and would not talk to anyone except my mother until she was two. She would just grunt and point when my dad was around. Kind of hilarious. I can't really recall how early my other sibs began talking.

[harpers_child]

i learned how to read and write when i was three, so i'm inferring i was speaking in sentences before then. i'll have to check with my mom. my speaking development is somewhat strange because i was also deaf for about a year when i was three and four years old.

[harpers_child]

having spoken to mom the deaf year was 2-3 and i was almost three before i was talking in full sentences. according to her i had started reading before i could talk well. she thinks i was a late talker.

both sisters were talking in full sentences before two.

my parents were huge into reading to us and spoke to us like we were adults, no "baby talk" or changing their vocabulary. i actually can't think of any family members / good family friends who ever spoke down to either myself or my sisters.

[isilya]

My family actually freaked out recently because my 21 month nephew wasn't talking at all -- not even saying mum or dad. He did however babble very musically and was clearly expressing himself in sentences -- they just weren't language. So he was obviously listening and hearing the cadence and tone of how people talked, but not the words.

We were concerned about an autism spectrum disorder (he didn't get upset when scolded, didn't really respond to his name). He had a history of severe ear infections, so we were also concerned that he might be hearing impaired, or even just have glue ear. We had his hearing tested, but it was fine. (As a side note, it's actually extremely difficult to get any kind of support if you believe your child is developmentally delayed when it comes to language -- until the child is about three or four.)

This is in contrast to the nephew who is one month younger, who by about 14 months was talking in sentences, counting to twenty, identifying all colours, and could "read" bedtime books that he was familiar with. Even at about one, he wasn't saying "dog", he was saying "sheep dog" and "terrier". He was also incredibly sensitive to other people's emotions and needs.

The elder nephew has now started speaking in sentences (following the birth of a brother, which I think had a lot to do with it).

The milestones for development are incredibly broad, but necessarily so, I think, to stop parents from freaking out. My eldest sister was standing by six months and walking by seven.

[retrofit]

One of the more interesting classes I've ever taken was about cross-cultural child development. One of the big takeaways from the class was that many of the things we learn as "universal" elements of development are very bound to the experimental designs used by, and subject pools available to, academic researchers. (surprise, surprise.)

One of the nifty examples we talked about was a video of some rural Kenyan women themselves watching a video of an American mom talking to her baby. They laughed at the video they were watching, explaining that the woman had to be crazy to talk to a baby. Children in their culture were understood to be not worth talking to until around age three, and most did not speak fluently themselves until age four or five. They did, however, start doing physical tasks quite a bit earlier than most Americans would expect they could, as evidenced by the piece of the video showing two-year-olds competently wielding machetes to eat sugar cane or something sweet like that.

Another great example not related to language acquistion -
The "strange situation" test, in which a young toddler is put through a few iterations of being left alone, with a stranger, and with mommy, is foundational to much of attachment theory. It was (is maybe still?) understood that the "normal" or "healthy" reaction is for the child to be unnerved and/or upset by the stranger coming in to the room, but relatively easily consoled by mom. A child who is perfectly comfortable with a stranger playing with her, AND a child who cannot be consoled, are both considered too-weakly attached.
But once you start using it as an attachment test in countries outside of the US, it becomes clear that whatever it is testing, it is not exactly universal. German babies often test as too-weakly attached because they don't freak out about the strangers. Japanese babies, on average, mostly test as too-weakly attached because they're inconsolable. Clearly, those two countries are just pathological!

[northern]

I apparently taught myself to read and write at age three with the help of blocks with letters on them. I've seen the kind of "notes" I took when mom brought me to her lectures when I was four.

And. He. They. Library.

All with neat punctuation marks after every word. I find it terrible cute now.

I have no idea why, but by siblings all learned to read later than me. One of them pretended she couldn't read until she was good at it, not wanting the embarrassment of failing. We could all read before school, at least.

I know I was an early speaker, although not as early as you, but I don't remember how my siblings did.

[cimorene]

I knew a baby like that! It was kind of hilarious - when I was in high school, doing childcare, there was a baby who was silent about 90% of the time, but would pop out very quiet, but well-articulated complex sentences (this around age 1) only in the presence of some people. It took a long time before I became one of them, but when I babysat at her home, she would talk basically the entire time. Some of the other caregivers, meanwhile, had never heard her talk at all.

[cimorene]

That's really interesting. One hears a lot about babies who wait and then go straight to complete sentences, but his musical vocalizations sound pretty unique.