Describe studies in which day-long recordings were made of nine-year-old children's spontaneous speech. Results indicate that: (1) children aged five to 15 speak some 20,000 words of discourse per day in about two to three hours of pure speaking time; (2) they have an active vocabulary of some 3,000 word-form types. (SED)

Discusses the variation and stability of mother speech patterns across individuals. Analyzes the functionally coded speech of 11 mothers and provides a typology of mother styles, based on the intentions of mothers to direct or converse with their children. (EKN)

Describes adjustments in speech patterns made by two- and three-year-olds when talking to their 14-month-old siblings and compares these changes with those made by mothers addressing their babies. Individual differences between the children indicate two types of influence on the adjustments made--pragmatic and emotional. (EKN)

Words artificially isolated from 12 parents' speech to their children aged 1;10-3;0 were significantly less intelligible to adult listeners than words originally spoken to an adult. While parents did not adjust the clarity of words, their speech was more redundant in anticipation of the children's comprehension. Research implications are…