32 Yoga for Speech-Language Development
next stage of language development. For example, the substantive
word “cookie” can be combined with the relational word “more” to
produce the two-word utterance “more cookie.”
Another aspect of first words is the meanings or semantic
notions that they express. Bloom and Lahey (1978) identified
nine broad semantic notions or content categories that were
observed during the one-word period of language development.
These content categories included the meanings of existence (e.g.
“juice”), nonexistence/disappearance (e.g. “gone”), recurrence
(e.g. “more”), rejection (e.g. “no”), denial (e.g. “no”), attribution
(e.g. “yummy”), possession (e.g. “mine”), action (e.g. “drink”),
and locative action (e.g. “out”). As children develop language
through the preschool years, they learn to express additional,
more cognitively complex semantic notions such as causality.
Bloom and Lahey (1978) identified a total of 21 different content
categories in children’s early language.
Furthermore, as noted in the discussion of the Intentionality
Model (Bloom and Tinker 2001), children’s language is
characterized by the expression of communicative intentions or
pragmatic functions. At the One-Word Stage, the toddler uses
words to express meaning and intentions. Pragmatic functions at
this stage are expressed through words in addition to gestures and
nonlinguistic vocalizations. Halliday’s (1975) taxonomy of early
communicative functions included the instrumental, regulatory,
interactional, and personal functions, which could be expressed
with a primitive type of language called “protolanguage.” This
description suggests the continuity between prelinguistic and
early linguistic communicative forms and functions. Dore’s (1975)
primitive speech acts taxonomy, which was developed around
the same time, includes functions such as labeling, answering,
requesting, calling, greeting, and protesting. Yoga classes for
children provide many opportunities for the learning of the three