What are the five stages of language development?

The five stages of language development recognized in child language acquisition include the pre-verbal stage, holophrastic stage, telegraphic stage, and post-telegraphic stage.

The pre-verbal stage is characterized by a lack of spoken language, where infants communicate through gestures, cries, and vocalizations without using words. Next comes the holophrastic stage, where children begin to use single words to convey whole ideas or meanings, often relying on context to clarify their intent. Following that is the telegraphic stage, where children start to combine words into two- or three-word phrases that convey essential meaning, omitting less critical words. Finally, the post-telegraphic stage involves more complex sentence structures as children approach more advanced language skills and begin to use more complete sentences, including grammatical functions.

The stages that are excluded in the other options fail to encompass the comprehensive development trajectory recognized in language acquisition theories. For instance, while cooing and babbling are significant components of early vocal development, they do not represent distinct stages of language as defined by the options listed.