TEAAFL

First Language

• uncontrolled production of sounds; first vocalizations
• ability to notice differences between similar sounds
  •  auditory discrimination, e.g. pa ⇔ ba
• children do not seem to reflect on the language they hear (no interaction with others)

• stop making distinctions between sounds that are not phonemic in the language
• understanding of frequently/regularly repeated words and phrases
• interaction with others through L1
• production of first – usually monosyllabic – words

• creatively combine words in order to form more or less meaningful sentences
  •  telegraphic sentences: no prepositions or articles
• use of L1 word order (‘truck fall down‘)
• produce at least fifty words (some researchers call this the beginning of Wortschatzspurt)

• use of predictable language patterns (grammatical morphemes, negation, questions...)
• some children show a gap between language use and their cognitive development (i.e. regarding concepts they have grasped)
  • plural forms: children can distinguish between singular and plural long before they reliably add plural endings to nouns

data collected at one point in time across a population, e.g. children who are two, three and four years old
 

Data is collected repeatedly over time with the same people, for example, the same child at 2, 3 and 4 years old.