The child as an individual has particular capacities, has rights, and navigates the speech and language pathway by his or her own schedule. This bears on whether a child needs speech and language therapy, and if a child does need speech and language therapy, when this should be. But the ordering of the steps on the pathway is surprisingly uniform.
By three, most children can, and do, say things which have never been said before in the whole of human history. It is a considerable feat.
Milestones
Three well-accepted milestones in the development of speech and language.
Chatter boxes
One new word an hour and 30,000 words a day
Irregularities
Universals and Universal Grammar
Hidden by the way language evolved
Infinite creativity
In two senses, in the sense of poetry and in the sense of ‘discrete infinity'
