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Demetri Toddlerhood

  • Demetri's 1st Birthday

    Demetri's 1st Birthday
    Demetri turned 1 years old this year!
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    Syntax and Morphology: 12-16 Months

    Starting around 12 months 50% of all of a toddler's utterances contain a single noun. This is the beginning of children increasing their Mean Length Utterance (MLU) in relation to Brown's stages of language development. Demetri exhibits this when he says one word sentences like "ball", "dog", daddy", and others.
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    Phonology: 12-16 Months

    At 12 months toddlers begin to form some words, but the majority of their speech is still unintelligible. Demetri's language development matches up with this and his speech mostly unintelligible. However, he does occasionally use words such as "ball", "dog", and "daddy".
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    Pragmatic Milestone: 12 Months

    Demetri has begun to use referential gestures. As he says the word for an action or object, he uses hand movements to describe the action or object. When using the word “ball” , Demetri draws a ball with his hands.
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    Semantics milestone:12 months

    Around 12 months or the first year of age, toddlers tend to speak their first word. This was the case for Demetri who at 12 months spoke his first word, "Mama".
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    Syntax and Morphology Milestone: 16-20 Months

    Children use negation (such as the word no). Demetri turned his head away and said no when his mother offered him his cup full of water that he didn't want to drink.
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    Phonology 16-20 Months

    At 16 months toddlers pronounce about 25% of all words intelligibly. Demetri demonstrates this, having learned a few more words such as "mommy", "play", "milk", among other words.
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    Prgamatic Milestone: 16 months

    Demetri has begun verbal turn taking. Demetri has begun to take turns verbally when conversing with mom. An example of how Demetri takes verbal turn taking can be seen in this video.
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    Semantics milestone: 16 months

    In typical toddler development, around the age of 16 months, toddlers should be using around 3-20 words. Demetri is on track, with some of his most spoken words being, mama, dada, baby, and more.
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    Syntax and Morphology: 18-24 Months

    During this time period children typically experience what we call a vocabulary spurt. A vocabulary spurt is common around 18-24 months of age when a child reaches the 50-word mark and has learned their first 50 words. Demetri exhibited this when he began to learn grammatical morphemes such as the present progressive "-ing" which follows the 50-word mark.
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    Syntax and Morphology: 20-24 Months

    Children begin to use the grammatical morphemes (an example includes the present progressive tense -ing). Demetri exhibited this grammatical morpheme use around 21 months in combination with a noun such as "mommy going", "baby crying" and "dog eating".
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    Syntax and Morphology: 20-24 Months

    Children begin to use two-word combinations and in turn reach Brown's second stage of language development. Regarding Brown's second stage of language development, Demetri made what we categorize as "two-element sentences". For example, at a family gathering as he was being held by his mom Demetri pointed towards a swing set and said "mommy go".
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    Phonology: 20-24 Months

    At 20 months toddlers begin to process spoken words incrementally. Demetri has started to listen more attentively which has increased his language acquisition. He is starting to become more familiar with a wider variety of words at this point.
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    Pragmatic Milestone: 20 Months

    Demetri is using two-gesture combinations. Dementri demonstrates the achievement of this milestone when he points to the strawberries and pretends to eat the strawberries as a request to his Mom to feed him.
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    Semantics milestone: 20 months

    Around 20 months of age Demetri can now produce about 50 words. His use of words are starting to develop more meaning as he is able to use verbs and adjectives. Some of his most spoken being, drinking, jumping, cold, and hot.
  • Demetri's 2nd Birthday

    Demetri's 2nd Birthday
    Demetri turned 2 today!
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    Phonology: 24-28 Months

    At 24 months toddlers are expected to start changing their intonation depending on what they are saying. Demetri has begun to raise the intonation in his voice when he asks questions. This demonstrates that he is grasping the concept of asking questions.
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    Pragmatic Milestone: 24 Months

    Demetri is beginning to use imaginative, heuristic, and informative language functions. Demetri is using imaginative functions by telling pretend stories to his Mom. Demetri has begun using heuristic functions by requesting information about things. Dementri is using informative functions by letting his Mom know how he feels.
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    Semantics milestone: 24 months

    At 24 months or 2 years of age Demetri's comprehension and understanding skills have increased drastically. As well as this, his skills in language production has also increased. He is now able to understand around 500 words, and can produce about 200.
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    Phonology: 28-32 Months

    At 28 months, toddlers begin to demonstrate phonological processes. This includes final consonant omission and substitution of consonants. Demetri is demonstrating this by using words such as "playin", "eatin", "cat", and "hat".
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    Pragmatic Milestone: 28 Months

    Demetri is engaging in short dialogues. This video shows an example of how Demetri engages in short dialogues.
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    Semantics milestone: 28 months

    At 28 months of age Demetri has started to overgeneralize some new words that he has been learning. For example he calls all types of candy, chocolate. As well as this he calls all animals with four legs, dogs.
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    Syntax and Morphology: 30-36 Months

    Independent clauses emerge and continue to emerge from around the time a child is 30 months and onwards. This is another indicator that children's language development continues to grow, and regarding Brown's stages, Demetri is currently in stage 3 while advancing to stage 4. An example from Demetri includes the sentence that he said at a birthday party, which was "I want cake".
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    Phonology: 32-36 Months

    At 32 months toddles pronounce about 80% of all words intelligibly. This means that they are able to begin to have conversations with the adults in their lives. Demetri has started to show this by speaking in longer phrases and sentences.
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    Phonology: 32-36 Months

    By this age, toddlers suppress most common phonological processes. The most common phonological processes that toddlers suppress include final-consonant deletion, reduplication, consonant harmony, and weak-syllable deletion. Demetri demonstrates this by saying complete words rather than deleting the final consonants or deleting weak syllables that are in certain words.
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    Pragmatic Milestone: 32-36 Months

    Demetri clarifies and requests clarification during conversations. Demetri asked his mom “What does “chore” mean? I don’t know that word.” after his mom used the word during their conversation.
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    Semantics milestone: 32-36 months

    Around the age of 3 years or 36 months, Demetri has started to ask simple questions. He often asks questions such as, "Why?", "Can you put the tv?", "Can I have some?" etc. As well as this Demetri can now produce about 500 words and can comprehend about 900 words.