We continue reviewing language development in the child, which will gradually be more similar to the one we use in our day to day.
Until now, our little one had one-word phrases, he expanded his repertoire of sounds, his imitation ability allowed him to repeat our vocalizations or facial expressions, and his understanding was also increased by being able to discriminate better sounds from his surroundings.
Now, at the stage that goes from the two to three years, our son will continue to enrich his language skills. Let's see how he does it.
Between 24 and 30 months
Regarding sounds and vocabulary, it is now when the child will begin to name specific objects in his environment whenever he wants something specific. It will no longer give us vague clues about what you want at that time. In this way, it will be easier to understand him and avoid being frustrated by the helplessness of anyone understanding him.
It is also now when he refers to himself by the pronoun "I", in addition to using possessive pronouns ("mine"). You will also be able to speak in the plural by adding the final “s” to the word, although these new formulations will not always be well formulated, since it will cost you (at the beginning) to correctly agree gender and number (“the dogs”, “the house” ...)
Now that you can refer to certain specific objects, it will be easier for you to ask questions like "what is ...?", "Where is ...?" And this will be important since it will be a step prior to the realization of richer word combinations in your sentences, noting the use of phrases of the type "Subject + Verb" ("Nene come") or "Subject + Adjective" ("Mom beautiful"… ). These types of combinations will be the basis for the formation of constructions of the type “Subject + Verb + Complement” (“Nene come pan”).
Your repertoire of expressive words will also be greatly increased, since throughout this period of time you will have a repertoire of approximately 300 words.
The verbal and gestural imitation ability Little by little it becomes more precise, being now when our child can repeat simple verses that he hears, he can imitate simple action models that he sees in an image, he can repeat simple rhythmic models or even, because his ability to make sentences is evolving, you can correctly imitate phrases of up to three words.
its understanding It continues to evolve just like the rest of its linguistic abilities, and it shows that it is now able to identify simple actions that are represented in an image (we have already seen that it will also be able to imitate them) or to correctly interpret the meanings of sounds he hears (identify when the phone rings, hears an ambulance, an animal ...).
It will also be now when he begins to recognize and identify the names of the basic family categories (father, mother, brother ...) and recognize the names of most of the family objects and their graphic representations. With respect to himself, he will know his own name and surname.
The communication little by little it is becoming more efficient, being able to tell now some recent event that happened to it, or to answer questions of the type "what is ...?", "what does ...?", "where is ...?", " whose is ...? or "who is ...?" In general, we can appreciate how our son directs his actions through language, not only through monologues while performing an action (although we are not present to hear it), but by explaining situations in which he mainly uses names of things, actions and people. In addition, depending on the intonation of your voice, you can give your words one meaning or another, depending on your internal state.
Between 30 and 36 months
Here begins a period in which the use of the sounds and vocabulary it begins to be more and more complex; our son begins to use different quantifiers (everything, none, much, little ...) and to ask questions correctly using the particles "how", "when", "where" and "why". The verbs he uses serve to describe what he is doing or the actions he sees represented in his day to day.
His repertoire of pronouns, prepositions and demonstrations is increasing, uses the verb "go" plus another verb in infinitive for different times (present, past and future) and uses the gerund to describe different actions ("Mom is eating") , which makes us see that the linguistic competence of our son is gradually more elaborate.
His spontaneous language increasingly has a greater number of articles and plurals (which he uses more correctly each time). In addition, he frequently uses (and imitates) phrases that increasingly increase the number of elements used, at this time becoming up to four ("Dad does not want bread").
With all this, we see how its expressive language is about 1,000 words, including a wide repertoire of phonemes in acquisition, such as the sounds / b /, / p /, / t /, / g /, / k / , / f /, / j /, / ch /, / m /, / n /, / ñ / and / l /.
In relation to this increase in the child's sounds and vocabulary, the understanding It also evolves, making the child understand long and increasingly complex sentences, as well as the why and how of things. If we ask for something, you are able to understand it better, even if we increase the number of objects or actions to be performed. For example: "take the glass and cutlery", "collect and store clothes", "collect toys and put on your coat", etc.
The understanding of temporal (night, morning ...), spatial aspects (above, below, in front, behind ...) and various common adjectives, give the child an increasingly large understanding capacity. In addition, a curious aspect of this stage is that the child is able to identify their linguistic errors and correct them by trial and error, something that until now was not able to do.
Finally, we observe how his ability to communication It allows you to use verbs to describe what you are doing or what you see in some images, as well as describe what you have done using phrases, as we have said before, of up to four elements.
But the most important thing is that our son understands that he is capable of directing his action through language, or what is the same, has discovered the regulatory function of language.
Conclusion
Language development in the child between two and three years It is the prelude to a time when both sounds, grammar rules and social rules will undergo a very large shift towards an increasingly complex and elaborate language that our little one should adopt according to the demands of the environment.
