Language is an evolving system of codes based on a certain social consensus rather than occurring spontaneously. Language is a tool that helps people establish and maintain relationships with each other. Clinicians examine language under two headings:
-Receptive Language: It is defined as receiving and understanding external verbal stimuli through the sensory-neural network and auditory-perceptual processes. (Miller et al. 1980, Behrman and Vaugan 1987, Smolak 1982).
-Expressive Language: It is the transfer of mental concepts by using sensory-nerve and motor-nerve functions. (Miller et al. 1980, Behrman and Vaugan 1987, Smolak 1982)
Stages of Language Development:
The first year of language development is the prelinguistic period, preschool These years are considered as periods in which basic language skills are acquired. It is thought that the prelinguistic period is the period in which the baby communicates with sounds and gestures before uttering its first words, and that this period is linked to the first word production (Vithman et al. 1985, Bee 1992).
Babies are innately equipped for language development. They are extremely sensitive to hearing. Within a few days after birth, they can distinguish human voices and even their mothers' voices among all the bombarded sounds (DeCasper and Fifer 1980, Bertoncini et al. 1988). They are sensitive to sound differences and can understand the differences between syllable groups, the sound differences of "b" and p", "d" and "t" (De Villers and De Villers 1979).
Babies' cries differ starting from the first month, Pain and hunger cries begin to be differentiated (Lewis 1982, Graham 1991). While the intensity and frequency of crying gradually decreases throughout development, there are significant changes in the baby's voice quality in the first year (Bell and Ainsworth 1973). Accordingly, the baby From birth to two months, it primarily produces reflex cries and vegetative sounds such as burping, coughing and yawning. In babies under seven weeks old, 'hunger' is one of the most important reasons for crying, while 'noise and light' are of secondary importance. In the first three months, 'abdominal pain' is the general reason for crying.
Between 2-5 months, the baby exhibits two important behaviors at the level of speech and communication. It shows: speech-like sounds that express pleasure that occur in social interaction, and the other is "croaking" or "cooing/comfort sounds" and the other is "smiling" during contentment.
In 4-8 months. The other period is the babbling period, which is referred to as the "vocal play" period by Stark. During this period, the baby produces single syllables containing vowels and consonants.
Repetitive babbling, which is seen starting from the second half of the first year, is the repetition of the same syllable containing vowels and consonants (e.g. "babababa"). ","mamama") and b, p, t, d, m and n were reported as the most frequently used consonants. Babbling is a behavior that the baby prefers to do to himself as a sound game (Paul et al. 1996).
The use of consonants and sound imitation begins when the baby is approximately 5 months old, and the imitation of words begins at the 11th month. Imitation behavior is one of the determining factors in the child's social and language development. It has been stated that normally developing babies need the ability to imitate sounds before learning to make their first meaningful words, and it is suggested that praise for verbal imitation or modeling behavior significantly increases the production of similar sounds (Behrman and Vaugan 1987).
The child says its first words between 8-18 months, on average, in the 12th month, and the vocabulary of the 24-month-old child reaches 200.
Babies can show 3 or more parts of their bodies (eyes, nose, eyes) in 24-27 months. ear etc). They begin to learn the positions of other family members other than their parents (such as uncles, grandmothers). During this period, children begin to make sentences with 2-3 words and use more verbal language for their requests.
At 27-30 months, they begin to recognize objects according to their characteristics, they can tell which object is big and which is small, and they gradually begin to recognize and name colors. . They can also answer related questions (such as what do you drink water with).
At the age of 2.5-3, children learn the concept of 'half'; they can easily distinguish pictures showing half of an object, say their names, and describe events in order. . In addition, during this period, children are exposed to everything around them. They tend to ask about things, constantly asking their parents about the meaning of words they hear or the names of objects they see. These questions may seem boring for parents, but it is very important to answer and explain their questions in terms of the child's development.
Children's speech at the age of 3-4.5 is expected to be quite understandable (90%), they use tense suffixes correctly in their sentences and can make question and exclamation sentences. . They have a vocabulary of 3500-5000 words and can easily understand locational sentences such as 'in front of', 'next to'. They also begin to distinguish similarities and can make cause-effect sentences.
Children's speech at the age of 5 is expected to be 100% understandable. They can recognize their mistakes during their speech and correct them themselves, easily tell the stories they hear or their thoughts, and classify words according to their meanings. In addition, during this period, children begin to distinguish between right and left, develop concepts such as speed and time, and become very interested in numbers.
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