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This is a language development period in which infants will learn to communicate by using gestures, facial expressions, eye contact and a few spoken words.
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By the time an infant in three months old, it should be able to respond vocally, even if it cannot properly form full words or morphemes yet.
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At this age, the baby should begin communicating through gestures, such as pointing, raising arms, or making eye contact.
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By the first year of a child’s life, he/she should be able to start speaking actual words that are associated with physical gestures.
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Toddlers begin speaking full words that are comprehensible, and later begin to develop a word order when trying to form sentences.
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At this age, toddlers should have a lexicon of about fifty words, and then they will combine words by using word-order rules that they have observed.
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By two years, a toddler’s lexicon should have increased a lot more to a range of 150-300 words, and he/she will be able to form larger word combinations when speaking.
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At this point, a toddler should begin to form complete sentences.
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This is the main time in which children are beginning to be tested for speaking, listening and overall comprehension skills.
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At this age, children begin to change their style of speech to match who they are conversing with.
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At five years old, a child should have developed approximately 90% of language form.
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It is at this point that a child should have the necessary language skills to be able to effectively communicate with conversation partners.
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By age six, children begin other communication methods through reading and writing.
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By now, children should be able to have complete conversations with others, including being able to tell narratives, understand and use words with multiple meanings, metaphorical language, and gender style.
