Childrens speech and bilingualism

Children say their first words between 12 and 18 months of age; Begin to use complex sentences by the age of 4 to 5 years; A baby is born with the capacity to make 40 sounds and genetics allows our brain to make associations between sounds and objects, actions, or ideas.

4 stages of language acquisition cooing- 6 months- use phonemes from every language babbling- 9 months- selectively use phonemes from their native language one word utterances- 12 months- start using single words telegraphic speech- 2 years- multi-word utterances that lack in function normal speech- 5 years- almost normal developed speech

Bilingualism

Bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages equally well. A bilingual person is one who can communicate in more than one language, be it actively or passively.

Classification according to the age of an individual – Early Bilingual This group can be further subdivided into: Simultaneous Bilinguals Sequential Bilinguals – Late Bilingual

Classification according to skill – Passive Bilingual – Dominant Bilingual – Balanced Bilingual – Equilingual

The four categories can be attributed by the four stages of language skills: – listening comprehension – speaking – reading comprehension – writing