Correct Answer - Option 2 : a sensitive
Childhood refers to the period of the human lifespan, ranging from birth to puberty. It consists of many developmental stages and early childhood is one of them.
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Sensitive periods are periods of psychological development in the child. This period is a time of limited duration.
- During the sensitive periods, the child has very powerful capacities. The child can do great things and make very important acquisitions, like language and movement.
Let us look at the stages of language development in early childhood:
3-12 months
- In this period, a baby will most likely coo and laugh, play with sounds, and begin to communicate with gestures like waving.
- Babbling is an important developmental stage during the first year. At this stage, though, this ‘speech’ doesn’t mean anything. First words often start by around 12 months.
12-18 months
- At this age, children often say their first words with meaning. For example, when your child says ‘Dada’, a child is actually calling for dad.
18 months to 2 years
- In child’s second year, their vocabulary has grown and they’ll start to put two words together into short ‘sentences’.
2-3 years
- A child can speak in longer, more complex sentences now, and is getting better at saying words correctly. A child might play and talk at the same time.
3-5 years
- A child might say things like, ‘Will I grow into a watermelon because I swallowed the watermelon seed?’ and show understanding of basic grammar, as they experiment with more complex sentences that have words like ‘because’, ‘if’, ‘so’ or ‘when’.
5-8 years
- A child can become a storyteller in different ways and build different types of sentences. These skills also let the child share ideas and opinions.
Hence, it could be concluded that early childhood is a sensitive period for language development.
