ABSTRACT
As children mature and interact in different situations, their purposes and goals for communication becomes more varied, and they acquire a wide range of communicative strategies for achieving their goals. Thus, communicative development reflects increasing complexity in both children’s communicative goals and their communicative strategies. As with language development and nonverbal communication, there are many theoretical perspectives used to study communicative development, and no single approach appears to provide an adequate account of developmental processes. During communicative development, children develop increasing complexity in their understanding of the communication process and its effects. This understanding occurs in three substages: preverbal routines, communicative intentionality, and linguistic communication. The most significant development during this time is children’s transition from nonverbal to verbal communication. In spite of the limitations of speech act theory and its many forms, a considerable research literature has been devoted to understanding the developmental sequence in which children’s use of various speech acts unfolds.
