Variability of manifestations of metalinguistic activity in speech ontogenesis

This article focuses both on child’s metalinguistic activity, and on the issues of variability in language acquisition. Manifestations of metalinguistic activity are discussed, both those typical of all ñhildren (necessary for unassisted construction of language system), and those typical not of all children (optional for language acquisition). It is proved that different manifestations of metalinguistic activity of children depend in different degrees on child’s ?group? membership, and represent one of the components of variability in language acquisition in ontogenesis.