Development of Pronouns
Source: Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall
Topics: Early Years (Birth-5), Speech and Language Development, Language (Age 0-1), Language (Ages 2-3), Language (Ages 3-5)
Learning the English pronominal system is a very complex process. This table offers the general order of pronoun acquisition, however, the actual order is variable with each child. As a group, subjective pronouns, such as he, she, and they, are acquired before objective pronouns, such as him, her, and them. These are followed by possessive pronouns, such as his, her, and their, and finally, around age 5, by reflexive pronouns, such as himself, herself, and themselves.
| Approximate Age in Months | Pronouns |
| 12-26 | I, it (subjective and objective |
| 27-30 | My, me, mine, you |
| 31-34 | Your, she, he, yours, we |
| 35-40 | They, us, hers, his, them, her |
| 41-46 | Its, our, him, myself, yourself, ours, their, theirs |
| 47+ | Herself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves |
Sources: Adapted from Haas & Owens (1985); Huxley (1970); Morehead & Ingram (1973); Waterman & Schatz (1982); and Wells (1985).
Excerpted From:
Excerpt from Language Development: An Introduction, by R.E. Owens, Jr., 2008 edition, p. 255.
© 2008, Allyn & Bacon, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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