Tag: expressive language

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1.3 Communication: Expressive Language

Expressive Language

Communication Development: Expressive Language1

Expressive language is what we use in order to get our message across to someone. This can be done verbally (e.g. by saying something) or non-verbally (e.g. by waving bye-bye to someone). Children develop their expressive language gradually and sequentially. In order to become experts in the expressive language domain, children will have to develop and master the following non-verbal, verbal and written language skills:

Nonverbal expressive language includes:

  • crying
  • smiling
  • laughing
  • frowning
  • waving bye-bye
  • pointing
  • throwing something (like a toy on the floor, in protest)

Verbal expressive language includes:

  • cooing (i.e. saying vowel sounds, over and over again: e.g., aaaaaaaaaaaa, uuuuuuuuuuuuu, eeeeeeeeee…)
  • producing guttural sounds when happy and content
  • babbling (i.e. saying consonant/vowel sound combinations, over and over again: e. g. bababa, dadada, badaga…)
  • imitating sounds and facial expressions
  • saying “mama” and “dada”, when referring to primary caregivers
  • repeating what others are saying
  • saying one word phrases (or “holophrases”): for example, “up” could mean “pick me up, please” or “see birdie up there”
  • labeling objects, animals, or people (e.g., “car,” “ouwee,” “cat,” “baby”, while pointing at these
  • saying please and thank-you
  • asking questions
  • answering questions
  • putting two words together (e.g. Mommy go, Daddy shoe)
  • using negatives (e.g. “no”)
  • using qualitative concepts (e.g. big/small, short/tall…)
  • using quantitative concepts (e.g. a lot, a little, all, none…)
  • using the present progressive (e.g. he is walking)
  • using pronouns (e.g. I, you)
  • using possessives (e.g. my, mine)
  • using prepositions (e.g. in, on, under, over)
  • using the regular and irregular past tense (e.g. walked, gave)
  • using the future tense (e.g. will walk, is going to walk)
  • putting three and four words together (e.g. I want milk, daddy go here)
  • putting more than four words together in a full sentence (i.e., I can read this book)
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Categories
1.3 Communication: Receptive Language

Receptive Language

Communication Development: Receptive Language1

Receptive language refers to a child’s ability to understand language. It usually develops earlier than expressive language. That is, children, and some adults, usually understand more language than they can produce. Receptive language can be divided into non-verbal, verbal and written language.

Non-verbal receptive language includes:

  • understanding others’ facial expressions, body language and hand signs

Verbal receptive language includes:

  • understanding what someone is saying
  • understanding qualitative concepts (e.g. big/small, short/tall…)
  • understanding quantitative concepts (e.g. a lot, a little, all, none…)
  • understanding and following simple directions (e.g. give me the book)
  • listening to stories
  • understanding and following complex directions (e.g. go to your room, pick up the book from the floor and bring it back to me)
  • understanding someone’s questions

Written receptive language includes:

  • recognizing letters (lower case)
  • recognizing letters (upper case)
  • recognizing numbers
  • reading and understanding simple sentences
  • reading and understanding complex sentences
  • reading and understanding paragraphs
  • tracing, copying and writing letters
  • tracing, copying and writing numbers
  • copying simple (e.g.,”mom“) and complex words (e.g., “truck“), from an example
  • writing letters together, in sequence to form words (from memory), e.g., m-o-m-m-my
  • writing words next to each other to form sentences, e.g. I-love-my-puppy
  • putting sentences together to form paragraphs, e.g., I love my puppy. One day I will take my puppy to school. I will show my puppy to my friends and to my teacher

 

Receptive language skills are extremely important for the development of expressive and pragmatic language skills. They are also crucial for the development of cognitive and social/emotional skills. In fact, receptive language, expressive language, pragmatic language, cognition and social/emotional skills are all related. Any delay or difficulties in one of these areas is likely to result in delays or difficulties in the other areas.

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