Stages of language development for GLPs

There is ongoing research in the area of GLP, we are seeing more and more children that appear to fit this model of language development.

We are therefore trying to support children where they are currently at and help nurseries, schools and families to work through the Natural Language Acquisition (NLA) stages outlined below:

• Stage 1 – Whole phrases – using whole learnt phrases
  e.g “hey what are you doing” “let me do it for you” “oh no what happened”, “uh oh”, “OK”. Phrases or ‘scripts’ can be as small as a single word or as long as a whole book or song.
• Stage 2 – Mixing and matching. The child is starting to ‘shorten’ or mix and match their whole learnt phrases to either shorten them or combine two learnt phrases together or be adding a single word to a short phrase
  e.g “hey + what happened”, “let me + do it” “oh no + cat”, “oh no + dog”, “where’s + book”, “where’s + mum”
• Stage 3 – Single words and combinations of single nouns and descriptions. The child is now starting to pull out single words from their phrases and use these to link to real life objects and situations
  e.g “cat” “red circle” “green balloon” “three pineapple” “fluffy”
• Stage 4 – Combining words and beginning of early grammar. At this stage, the child is starting to combine single words together to make more unique, flexible phrases with the start of early grammatical markings
  e.g “hey you heart” “cat happen now” “I doing circle”
• Stage 5 and 6 – The child is starting to develop more complex grammar in their spoken language and develop understanding of different grammatical concepts.

Children will often be using language at a range of different stages. In assessment, the child’s therapist may take a language sample by either recording or writing down the words and phrases a child is using during child led play activities. This will then be analysed to help understand what stage the child’s language is mainly at and how people around them can support their language development. It’s helpful if you can provide additional information about things that your child says at home so that this can be considered in the assessment too. Download the GLP script record sheet in the ‘Further information and advice’ section on this page to help you record the scripts your child is using.

It is common for children to continue to use some of their stage 1 phrases or scripts in their talking, even when they are using language at a much higher level. This appears to be especially common when a child is tired or experiencing heightened emotions as it may be easier for them to retrieve stored/familiar phrases rather than generating more novel spontaneous language in these situations.