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218 PILLAR 2 Development and LearningThe two-word stage marks the end of the language stages. As Table 13.1 indicates, after age 2, children build on the phonemes, morphemes, words, and grammatical rules they have already mastered to develop longer and more complex sentences.20 Their vocabulary continues to grow, too. Throughout childhood, an average person learns 5000 words a year, most of them outside school.21That%u2019s more than 13 words a day! By the time they hit elementary school, children understand complex sentence structures. If you%u2019re average, by the time you graduate from high school, you will have a vocabulary of 60,000 words.22As children develop their language skills, they drop interesting clues that support Chomsky%u2019s theory of language acquisition. One of the most interesting is overgeneralization, which occurs when children make mistakes by applying a grammatical rule they have learned too broadly. For example, English-speaking children learn to make verbs past tense by adding the suffix -ed. This approach works well if it is a regular verb (such as lookand looked or walk and walked), but irregular verbs are more challenging. What is the past tense of go? It%u2019s went. But sometimes children apply the rule to these exceptions and say, %u201cMommy goed to the store.%u201d In this case, the child is overgeneralizing the internalized grammatical rule. Beyond being kind of cute and amusing, this overgeneralization points to the brain%u2019s ability to easily soak up language rules.Notice again that the natural, easy learning of language applies to spoken language. Spoken language appeared long before written language in human history. Our brains are equipped to handle it easily, but we have not yet developed mechanisms to handle the written word as easily. We learn to speak without conscious effort as young children, yet we must go to school and work to master reading and writing. Even spoken language becomes more difficult after about age 10%u2014when a critical developmental window seems to slam shut. In rare, tragic cases in which a child has been raised in isolation through the first decade of life, language development does not proceed normally. After this window of opportunity closes, those of us who easily developed a first language must struggle to learn a second one. Knowing this, linguists often argue that it makes more sense to introduce foreign languages in preschool than in middle or high school.Your introductory psychology course barely scratches the surface when it comes to the wonders of human language, but one thing is certain: the course could not exist without it. The very fact that you can read about and discuss language proves its importance%u2014which extends to every aspect of human interaction.TABLE 13.1 Stages of Language DevelopmentAge in Months (Approximate) Achievement4 Babbling of many speech sounds (%u201cah-goo%u201d)8 Babbling resembles household language (%u201cma-ma%u201d)12 One-word expressions (%u201cKitty!%u201d)24 Two-word sentences (%u201cGet ball.%u201d)24+ Rapid development of complete sentencesOvergeneralizationThis 4-year old might tell her teacher that %u201cMommy and me goed to the store.%u201d These mistakes show she has internalized the grammatical rules of the language, even as she makes mistakes.Shutterstock%u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.