One-word (holophrastic) Stage:
This is the second stage of language acquisition where children begin to produce one-word utterances. This stage usually occurs between 12 and 18 months. There is no need to panic if your child is not up to this stage by this time, everyone learns and different paces and it is completely normal. The one word stage is also known as the holophrastic stage. The word holophrastic means one word taking the place of a phrase. These one word utterances can also take the place of a whole sentence. A child may use the word dada to mean 'I see daddy' or water to mean 'give me more water'. Children will tend to use this stage to obtain things they want or need, but sometimes tend to not be very obvious. The child will appear to give a single word which gives the most information about what they want to express. These one word utterances are usually open class words such as nouns and verbs but also commonly consist of stem words. Nouns make up approximately 50% of the sounds produced in the stage, while verbs and modifiers only make up around 30%, questions and negatives make up the rest. |
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pDWeoIGXvg)
This video shows the one word utterance (holophrastic) stage. Although not in English, it is easy to identify the one word utterances the child is producing, consisting mainly of nouns and verbs. |