Previous studies have demonstrated an effect of early vocal production on infants' speech processing and later vocabulary. This study focuses on the relationship between vocal production and new word learning. Thirty monolingual Italian-learning infants were recorded at about 11 months, to establish the extent of their consonant production. In…

Early spontaneous gesture, specifically deictic gesture, predicts subsequent vocabulary development in typically developing (TD) children. Here, we ask whether deictic gesture plays a similar role in predicting later vocabulary size in children with Down Syndrome (DS), who have been shown to have difficulties in speech production, but strengths in…

We investigated longitudinal relations among gaze following and face scanning in infancy and later language development. At 12 months, infants watched videos of a woman describing an object while their passive viewing was measured with an eye-tracker. We examined the relation between infants' face scanning behavior and their tendency to follow the…

This study constitutes the beginning of a longitudinal investigation of phonological development of four children from birth to 2 years. Little variation was found in mean fundamental frequency. Duration, within-utterance range and variability did show developmental change. (RM)

The fundamental frequencies (Fo) of infant cries were analyzed to determine if mean cry Fo differed as a function of the infant's sex or due to the stimulus evoking the cry. Results indicate no significant differences in either; however, males exhibited a tendency to have higher mean Fo. (Author/KM)

Vocalizations of two female infants, recorded over a five-week period after the first emergence of cooing were studied. It was found that the features of the more primitive sound types regrouped themselves in comfort sounds. The implications for theories of prespeech development are discussed. (EJS)

This research disputes the traditional position on babbling by showing that the phonetic content of babbled utterances exhibits many of the same preferences for certain kinds of phonetic elements and sequences that have been found in the production of meaningful speech by children in later stages of language development. (Author/RM)

Through discussion and illustrative events, an evolving segment of communication is described during the course of transition of one child's total communication system from the sensorimotor or gestural level at 12 months into the level of use of the adult words "more" and "mine," and associated utterances, at 24 months. (Author/RM)

Research is reported which investigated the ability of four-month-old hearing infants to discriminate between gestures derived from American Sign Language. Findings show that infants possess the perceptual abilities to differentiate between signs that differ solely in terms of contrasts along a single underlying movement direction. (SED)

Six children were visited in their homes every 2 weeks for 18 months from the age of 6 months to observe their developing comprehension and production of words. Results showed both similarities and individual differences in patterns of early comprehension. A close relationship was noted between early production and comprehension of words;…