Communication Development

Levi is my nephew born of my biological brother Zalema and his wife Annette Kuedituka. Elliette is Levi’s order sister, who was born two and an half years before Levi. They both grew up in the same household where they were exposed to both English and Lingala. Lingala is a native language of Congo spoken in Kinshasa and the neighboring regions around it. The interesting thing is that Levi mastered that language not only better than her sister and most Congolese kids who were born or grew up in the United States, but he did it before he reached age two utilizing phases and syntaxes used by adult Congolese. How did this happen? With this post try to answer that question considering the communication milestones of toddlers from age 19 months to 24 months old.

At 19 to 24 months the child have underwent many developmental changes. However on this discussion, I will only consider the communication. At this point the toddler’s cerebral cortex shows a specialization of the left hemisphere for language because for most of us the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex is responsible for our spoken and written languages (Berk, 2010). Also around this age, most normally developing children start expanding their vocabulary from 50 to 200 words, and in many case the start combining two words. Although at this age, toddlers start using language to communicate their emotions and feelings, their limited vocabulary would push them to use temper tantrum to insist on their demands (Berk, 2010). Most children develop their communication skills from their caregivers or mothers, but for that to happen they have to have developed an attachment to those individuals. Thompson (2000) in his legacy of early attachments argued that attachment ...

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...dance expert because of her physical development and coordination, but was not as proficient enough as Levi in speaking Lingala. Currently Levi speaks Lingala and English without any noticeable accent in either language with an even wider vocabulary. Therefore Levi met and surpassed the language milestone for toddler of his age. His caregivers enhanced his language development. In this case, instead of clashing of two cultures, which would have caused confusion and delay in Levi’s language development, but instead he strove and learned both languages in tandem. In contrast, I have two kids who have been expose to three languages English, Lingala, and Japanese. They can proficiently speak English, however they can barely construct simple sentence in those other two languages even though Lingala is the language my wife and I use at home to communicate with them.