Production Of An Infant's First Words

What factors contribute to the production of an infant’s first words?

There are multiple factors required for the production of an infant’s first words involving both processes and physical developments in order to achieve language acquisition. I am going to focus mainly on the processes but will incorporate the infant’s physical development to discuss initial sound production. I will briefly cover an infant’s knowledge base and how they have developed certain understandings prior to the development of speech without detracting from what an incredible task human language acquisition actually is. I shall discuss the proposed five stages required for the production of an infant’s first words incorporating why only three are required for comprehension. I am stating comprehension as understanding vocabulary and production as speaking from vocabulary content. Referring to these stages I shall discuss the different opinions and studies used to highlight concepts with particular reference to nativists and social constructivists as the two main challenging theories. I will also discuss individual
In respect to language an infant becomes exposed to the sound of the spoken word through social interaction yet, initially, it has no idea of category or meaning. As an adult exposed to a foreign language, initially there is no idea of meaning but we have language comprehension so can learn by translation; an infant must learn from scratch (Harris, 2004, p. 64). Having established infants early cognitive abilities, it is logical they will comprehend words before developing the ability to produce them. Comprehension is cognitive where production also involves physical repetition; as shown in the table below (Harris, 2004,