Normal language development

There is a consensus of opinion that humans are born with the capacity to make use of symbols and code events, i.e. humans have a ‘language instinct’ (Pinker, 1995) that parents/caretakers activate and fuel during their child’s early years. The language instinct is powerful and appears to have an optimum time for activation, that is, from birth to around three years of age during which the infant develops from being a recipient of undifferentiated stimuli to becoming a social being who has mastered the attentional styles, language, and reciprocity inherent in effective social communication. For children who have impaired language functioning, the power and flexibility that characterize the development of the language instinct are much less evident and progress is considerably slower.