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DR 1: Children are personally and socially competent
⇣ Indicator: LANG—Children show growing abilities in communication and language
⇣ Measure 18: Expresses Self Through Language—
Child uses language to communicate with increasingly complex words and sentences
	Descriptors	Examples
9	Uses more complex language or vocabulary to describe events that are imaginary, to explain, or to predict	“If I were a princess, I would have a beautiful dress.” “He can throw the ball farther than you because he has very big muscles.” “When we put the balls in the water, they will float.”
8	Uses increasingly varied and grammatically complex sentences	Combines phrases and sentences into complex sentences: “We were playing outside and Bobby fell down.” “I tried to open it but it was too hard.” “He can do it because he is bigger.”
7	Uses simple phrases and sentences, applying simple grammatical rules	Phrases and sentences might include: Negative forms: “Bobby can’t play.” Adjective-noun combinations: “That’s a green hat.” Past tense: “He played outside.” Future tense: “She’s gonna go to the zoo.”
6	Combines words into phrases or sentences to express needs, feelings, and interests	Combines more than two words or signs to communicate. For example: “Me go outside now.” “Take shoes off.” “I want my mommy.” “No like that.”
5	Communicates using increasing numbers of two word combinations	Combines two words or signs to communicate. For example: “push truck” “my cookie” “no night-night” “more juice” “that baby”
4	Uses an increasing number of simple words to communicate	Uses single words or signs to name people, objects, or actions. Uses words or signs to communicate things such as “no,” “more,” “all gone,” and “up.”
3	Has a few word approximations or gestures that communicate	Reaches for or gestures to an object that he wants. May say “ma-ma,” “da-da,” or “ba-ba” (bottle) or similar word approximations. May have a few special gestures to communicate needs or name things.
2	Responds to environment through gestures, sounds, or facial expressions	Waves arms or kicks legs excitedly when adult blows bubbles. Cries or fusses when hungry.
1	Makes sounds spontaneously	Coos. Cries.

Measure 18 — LANG 3

Expresses Self Through Language

Child uses language to communicate with increasingly complex words and sentences

As they develop, young children acquire the ability to communicate with others through their use of language. Newborn infants produce sounds only reflexively but gradually learn to produce sounds and vocalizations that have shared meaning. When young children have acquired a vocabulary of single words, they begin to combine two words to communicate meaning. Eventually they learn to use grammatical constructions in longer and more complex phrases and sentences to communicate information to others in their environment.

Infants initially produce sounds unintentionally and in response to internal sensations. They gradually begin to move arms or legs, make facial expressions, coo, and even cry in response to their bodily sensations and also in response to interactions with the environment. Eventually, infants use gestures or sounds intentionally to send a message for others to act on. At this point, infants expect a response to their communications. Once infants are intentionally communicating, they begin to use words or word approximations or gestures to communicate specific meaning.

Toddlers begin to add simple words to their vocabulary, including the names of things and actions, as well as function words (more, all gone, no, this). These words are often used in combination with gestures and facial expressions. As soon as toddlers have a vocabulary of approximately 50 words, they begin to put two words together in very specific ways, indicating names (“that birdie”), possession (“my doggie”), recurrence (“more milk”), negation (“no juice”), and action-object (“push truck”). With time, toddlers continue to add new words to their vocabulary.

Young preschoolers advance from two word utterances to multi-word utterances (such as “I see Mommy.”). As their utterances become longer, preschoolers also begin to learn to apply grammatical rules to communicate things such as possession (‘s), plurals (-s), verb tense (-ing and –ed), and pronouns (he, she, they). As with toddlers, their vocabulary is still growing.

Older preschoolers are learning to produce more grammatically complex language by changing word order to express questions (“Do you have the ball?”), negatives (“I do not have a ball.”), and combining utterances to produce more complex utterances (“I went to the door because I saw the mailman.”). Older preschoolers also demonstrate the ability to use language abstractly to describe an imaginary event or to predict the future. Their vocabulary continues to grow as children continue mastering grammatical aspects of language.

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