This study reports a replication of an earlier study by Kilbourne and Ginsberg (1980) which indicated the occurrence of a transition from predominantly coacting to predominantly alternating infant-mother vocalization patterns. In addition, the present study examined the modulating influences of nursing activity and mother's focus of attention upon…

Video-analysis was used to investigate the transition from coacting to alternating patterns of infant-mother vocalizations in this longitudinal study of one infant. In addition to investigating the transition and its developmental implications, the relationship between the temporal patterning of kinesic and vocal behaviors was studied. The study…

Speech samples of 14 normal 2-year-old children and 14 Down's Syndrome 5- to 12-year-old children were analyzed to investigate the structural complexity. Results from the Developmental Sentence Scoring procedure indicated that even when matched with normal children for mean length of utterance, Down's Syndrome Ss produced less syntactically…

A longitudinal study investigated early syntactic forms in child language; this paper reports on findings dealing with differences in approach to syntactic acquisition. Seven children aged 16-20 months were the subjects, and audio or video tapes were made once every three weeks beginning prior to the development of syntax. Data collection…

The recognition of linguistic stereotypes based on gender and actual speech production were examined in 10 four-year-old and 10 six-year-old children. Eight linguistic forms were presented to the children in two different contexts in a story. After each sentence containing one of the forms, the children were asked whether a boy or girl had spoken,…

Evidence from the language use of young children is used to question accepted notions of language development and instruction in the three papers in this compilation. The first paper, "Young Children Challenge the Belief That Language Needs to be Taught Sequentially," challenges the notion of sequential development in which oral language…

Up to the present, no studies have been done in the area of child language in Mexico. The Center of Linguistic and Literary Studies of the Colegio de Mexico carried out an empirical investigation of the language of six- to seven-year-old Mexican children. This paper presents, in preliminary form, some partial results of the investigation,…

The intent of this study was to determine the extent to which preschool children's speech to self, their private speech, was differentiated from their social speech. Ten randomly chosen preschool children, six boys and four girls with a median age of 56 months, were observed in conditions supportive of oral communication (free play), and in…

The distribution of errors in children's responses in four elicitation tests of their color-naming abilities is explored with a view to clarifying states of ignorance. Subjects include 47 Polynesian children ranging in age from 2 to 12 years. The four experiments include a naming task, two identification tasks and a mapping task. Children are…

This paper describes the linguistic development of two hearing sons of deaf parents. Both were exposed to an early language environment different from that of the average hearing child. At the start of the study, the boys were aged 3 years, 9 months, and 1 year, 8 months, respectively. When first observed, the older child performed well below age…

The development of the Conversational Unit (CU) was investigated in a semilongitudinal study of three mother/son dyads in nonstructured spontaneous communication. The children were 19 to 23 months old at the start of the investigation. Sound films were recorded monthly during bathing and feeding times. After four months, verbal and nonverbal…

In order to investigate the hypothesis that the conceptualization of sequence precedes that of simultaneity in child development, and to explore the use of elicited imitation in studying lexical acquisition, 32 subjects between 3 and 5 years of age were asked to verbally imitate a list of sentences. The constructions combined simple and reverse…

Evidence shows that there are differences in the ways in which men and women speak. It has also been well documented that females are generally ahead of males in language acquisition and are less often diagnosed as speech pathologic. A review of the research gives some indication of the reasons for the development of sex differences in spoken…