A FEW FACTS ABOUT CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE SKILLS

In general:

By the age of 3, most children of normal development can string words together in generally correct order, and can use language in a conversationally appropriate way. Their vocabulary can range from about 500 to 3,000 words. They can identify over five parts of their own bodies.

By age 5-6, the basic language structures of most children are well established, although far from fully mature. They can define SOME simple words. They can accurately name 3-4 colors. With a receptive vocabulary generally estimated at around 14,000 words, their language sounds on the surface much like an adult's.

This misleading surface similarity of language does not mean, however, that these children have achieved mastery of their language. Later acquisitions include (but are not limited to) the ability to handle 1) complex sentences containing relative (e.g., who, which, that) or adverbial (e.g., when, before, after, while) clauses; 2) some critical verb structures like many passives; 3) complex negation, and 4) complex structural distinctions such as those between ask and tell, know and think, easy to (see/please/etc) and eager to (see, etc) and some syntactic aspects of the verb "promise" - that is, the way we use the word (not the concept of) "promise" in a sentence.

Nor does the apparent similarity mean that children this age have mastered all those concepts expressed in language, such as age, time, speed, size duration and number: (How old is she? When did it happen?, How fast was the car going?, How big was the knife?, How long did it last? How many times did it happen?) They do not fully understand the family relationships expressed by kinship terms such as parents, aunt, grandfather, cousin. While recent empirical research with abused children indicates an understanding of the concepts of truth/lie by at least age 5, the ability to express or define that knowledge (What is truth?) develops much later.

By age 10-11, most children of normal development have acquired the ability to use most of these relational words in an adult fashion.

What follows is a list of a few features of language that children acquire from about the age of 2 to 10. Keep in mind that all of these data are for native speakers of English, Children (and adults too) who have English as a second language may lag far behind the acquisition ranges given here, so special care must be taken in talking with, and listening to them. There is one other caveat to add; not all studies of children's acquisition are comparable. Some follow only a few children over a long period of time, others observe larger groups of children in shorter bursts of time. Most studies to date are of white, middle-class children. The result is that scholars often disagree as to actual acquisition ages. There is, however, a middle ground, and that is what is represented on the next two pages.