The evidence suggests that
the child is working out how to use the linguistic system while focused on communication and interaction rather than correctness. For the child, the use of forms such as goed and foots is simply a means of trying to say what he or she means during a particular stage of development. Those embarrassed parents who insist that the child didn’t hear such things at home are implicitly recognizing that “imitation” is not the primary force in first language acquisition.