Page 126 - Meeting with Children Book

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comprehend what is being said to him or around him. This
is often not acknowledged by caregivers who say things in
front of their toddler for instance and claim "he can't
understand what we are saying". Caregivers tend to base
this on the number of words a their toddler knows vs. an
awareness of how comprehension without language works.
Garber (2010) notes:

Language comprehension precedes expression, in part,
because meaning is first derived preverbally through
prosody, the contextual clues that accompany words (e.g.,
intonation, emotion and behavior). When an infant
experiences an utterance consistently paired with pleasure,
for example, that utterance by itself begins to carry
pleasurable meaning. This early and constant "paired
associate" method of learning amounts to what might be
called emotional communication. (p.59)

Some children will demonstrate language that is deemed
advanced of his/her peers. This can be due to advanced
cognitive development or it may be imitation related to
exposure of adult issues due to family dysfunction. In the
case of family dysfunction pay attention to how the child's
vocabulary is used. It may sound out of sync with other
things the child says. It may sound rigid, or stereotyped. The
child may not be able to explain what he/she means by
what he/she says. It is always important to ask a child "what
do you mean by that?" Unfortunately, children feel
rewarded by parents who share too much or expect them
to "join" them inappropriately. It is difficult if not
impossible for this aged child to accurately distinguish the
self well from "other".

A process of assimilation, accommodation and
equilibration is underway during this stage of cognitive
development. Assimilation is when a child uses existing
schema (knowledge) such as identifying a dog as a "puppy"