ABSTRACT
Language competence is crucial for emotional well-being, social functioning and thinking capacity across the lifespan and in all cultures. As Snow (2009) indicates, language is both a predictor variable in infancy and an outcome variable in later childhood and in the mature years. As with other aspects of development, there is quite wide variation in the ages at which
children reach specific milestones in language development, though the sequences tend to be similar. Most babies are competent communicators long before the emergence of the first words. Children appear to be programmed to learn language but the adults and children in the child’s immediate environment play a huge part in facilitating language development.
