This stage lasts from birth to 1 year old. The preverbal stage is how the child learns to communicate through gestures and noises. While they are not using actual words, they may use baby talk or sounds to communicate emotions like hunger. They also learn that crying will get them what they want, and that they can use certain gestures to connect with the adults in their lives.
From a year to a year and half old, the child enters stage one of their vocabulary development. The child will stop using baby talk and start to use actual words such as, doggie, mamma, and dadda. These will usually be single words to describe wants or what the child sees. Most words used will be nouns.
Stage two lasts from a year and a half to 2 years old. Children will begin to speak in sentences, but they will be short and lack proper word structure. They may say things like "Momma go" or "Want cookie." They are not grammatically correct but do communicate both a subject and a verb.
This stage lasts from the end of stage two, which can vary between 24 and 26 months, through 3 years. Children are learning how to use grammar properly. Instead of saying "Momma store" they say "Momma go store." This shows they are starting to understand and put together the different parts of a sentence, though they do not yet understand to change "go" to "went."
The last stage is from 3 years old, the toddler stage, through 5 years old. About 90 percent of the child's language will be learned during this stage. They start to form proper sentences, such as turning the example from Stage Four into "Momma went to the store." They can communicate properly and will continue to increase their vocabulary.