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Semantic Development

Semantic development refers to the process of growth, occurring over time, in knowledge of the meaning-related aspects of language. Comprehension and expression of meaning are both marked by a series of age-related changes as children grow older and gain experience with language. Semantic development begins during infancy at the single-word level and later expands to the sentence and discourse level. Although the word-learning process may change with development, growth in word knowledge is not limited to any particular age range. On the contrary, research has demonstrated that vocabulary can continue to expand throughout life. This entry discusses the developmental course of vocabulary growth in typically developing children and presents several influential theoretical accounts of children’s semantic development.

Sequence of Early Development

This section traces the course of semantic development in typically developing children across infancy and early childhood, a period marked by both common developmental sequences and substantial individual differences.

First Words

During the first 12 months of life, typically developing infants progress through a series of babbling stages in which they practice producing the various speech sounds of their native language. However, theorists draw a sharp distinction between such babbling and the advent of true words. A word is a sequence of speech sounds, recognizable to the speakers of a given language that is meant to represent some real-world object or event. Although infants often produce their first words sometime around their first birthday (between 10 and 15 months of age), comprehension generally begins several months earlier. For example, it is not uncommon for infants as young as 5 months of age to show evidence of recognizing their own names. Growth in comprehension continues to outpace that of production, so that by the age of 2, children can comprehend about two or three times as many words as they can produce. First words typically include names of familiar people, objects, and animals; body parts; and social routines (e.g., goodbye and thank you). Even at this early stage, single words may serve a variety of pragmatic functions, such as labeling, requesting, greeting, and protesting.

Although children share a common sequence of typical semantic development, individual rates of development differ widely from one child to another. For example, a typically developing 16-month-old may comprehend as few as 90 or as many as 320 words. Individual styles of vocabulary acquisition also differ. Some children learn a great many labels referring to individual objects (a referential style), while other children acquire more social phrases (an expressive style). Although researchers have pinpointed some factors that are related to word-learning style (first-born children are more likely to adopt a referential style, for instance), neither learning style is necessarily more advantageous. Most young children have a learning style somewhere between the two extremes.

Vocabulary Burst

Early word learning proceeds slowly, at an average pace of 8–11 new words per month. Once children have a working vocabulary of about 50 words (a milestone often reached at around 18 months of age), many undergo what has been dubbed a vocabulary burst. The rate of word learning increases sharply, so that more than 20–30 new words are added monthly. As some researchers have pointed out, however, not all children show such a dramatic increase in vocabulary during the second year of life. Some children may experience a vocabulary burst, while others continue to add words in a more gradual, linear fashion.

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