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At about 21 months of age, or usually about 8 to 12 months after they say their first word, most children compose their first simple two-word sentences, such as “Kitty come,” or “Mommy milk.” Telegraphic speech, like a telegram, includes only a few essential words. Like other milestones in language development, telegraphic speech is universal among toddlers. Children around the world use two-word phrases to express themselves.

Language development follows a predictable path, as shown in Table 5.3. Between 20 and 30 months of age, children begin to follow the rules for forming sentences in a given language. Soon they become more comfortable with using plurals, past tense, articles (such as a and the), prepositions (such as in and on), and conjunctions (such as and and but). By 2½ years of age, children demonstrate an awareness of the communicative purpose of speech and the importance of being understood (Owens, 2016). In one experiment, 2½-year-old children asked an adult to hand them a toy. A child was more likely to repeat and clarify the request for the toy when the adult’s verbal response indicated misunderstanding of the child’s request (“Did you say to put the toy on the shelf?”) than when the adult appeared to understand the request, regardless of whether the adult gave the child the toy (Shwe & Markman, 1997).

Table 5.3