There are four main categories of common language acquisition: the stage of babbling, the Holophrastic or single word stage, the two-word category and the Telegraphic section.
| AGE | STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT | |
| 1 | 0–3 months | Reflexive communication |
| 2 | 3–8 months | Reflexive communication; interest in others |
| 3 | 8–13 months | Intentional communication; sociability |
| 4 | 12–18 months | First words |
| 5 | 18–24 months | Simple sentences of two words |
| 6 | 2–3 years | Sentences of three or more words |
| 7 | 3–5 years | Complex sentences; has conversations |
1. Babbling
Within a few weeks after birth the baby begins to recognize its mother’s voice. There are two categories below this period. The first occurs between births – 8 months. Most of these stages include the environment and only during the 5/6 – 8 month period when the baby begins to use sounds.
During these months the baby hears the sounds around it and tries to reproduce it, even though there is limited success. Kids try to create and experiment with sounds, is what we call buzzing. When a child is amazed for a few months he begins to associate the words or sounds he makes in things. This is the second sub stage. From 8 months to 12 months the baby gains more control over not only verbal communication but also physical communication, for example with body language and gestures. Eventually when a child uses both verbal and non-verbal communication methods, it is only then that they move on to the next stage of language acquisition.
2. Holophrastic / Single Word Category
The second stage of language acquisition is holophrastic or single word class. This section is identified by single word sentences. At this stage nouns make up about 50% of the vocabulary of infants while actions and changes make up about 30% and questions and objections make up the rest. This one-word category contains the single words “play” in “I want to play now”.
Infants use these sentences primarily to get what they want or need, but sometimes they are less clear. For example, a child may cry or say “mommy” for attention. The baby is ready to move on to the next stage where he can talk about consecutive word sentences.
3. Two Words Stage
The two word phrase (as you can guess) is made up of two word sentences. These sentences contain 1 adverbial word and 1 verb word. An example is the “dog walk” of the phrase “the dog is being walked.”
4. Telegraphic platform
The final stage of language acquisition is the telegraphic phase. This category is called as it is because it is similar to what is seen in the telegram; containing enough details to make the sentence. This section contains three and four word sentences. Sometimes during this stage the child begins to notice the connection between words and objects and therefore overuse comes into play. Some examples of sentences on the telegraph stage are “Mummy eat carrot”, “What is her name?” and “He plays football.” At the end of this stage the child begins to incorporate plurals, to join the words and to try to capture the tenses.
Given the complexity of language recognition, one would expect that learning a language well could be a daunting task; indeed, for those of us who are trying to learn a second language as adults, this may seem to be true. However, very young children learn the language very quickly. Language use, develops when there is no formal teaching and seems to follow the same pattern for children from very different cultures and backgrounds. Therefore, it may seem that we are born with the ability to acquire language.
Children begin learning language at an early age (see table below). In fact, it seems that this could happen even before we were born. Newborn babies show a fondness for their mother’s voice and seem to be able to distinguish between the language spoken by their mother and other languages. Children also adapt to the surrounding working languages ??and display preferences for face-to-face videos that move in line with the sound of spoken language compared to non-audio videos.