Table of Contents

About this book
1. Overview: What can they do?
2. Beginnings
3. A sea of sound
4. Talking by accident
5. Are the talking yet?
6. Eureka! First words
7. Thinking, play and language
8. The one-word stage: expanding words and worlds
9. What’s the use of language, anyway?
10. Early meanings: look what I can tell you!
11. putting it together: more than one word
12. Later meanings: expanding language into complex concepts
13. Listen to what I can say: early sound development
14. I can really say a lot now! Later sound development
15. ‘No’ and ‘won’t’: short sentences with a big impact
16. The three ‘terrible question’ stages
17. Talking in the world
18. language is needed everywhere
19. Questions and answers
20. Is there a problem?
Resources and further reading
Author notes

About the Author

Margaret Maclagan (PhD, Lond) has been a lecturer in child language development and language analysis for more than three decades. She taught speech-language therapists at the University of Canterbury, is an author and editor of academic books, and now writes for a general audience. She is a mother and grandmother.

Anne Buckley (MSc, Human Communication, Lond) is a former speech-language therapist. She has worked in medical publishing for more than a decade as a medical writer and editor, writing for both health professionals and consumers. Anne has a son.