Videotape recordings of interaction of 42 preschool children in same-sex dyads were coded and analyzed to see how these children used the word "no" in their interactions. Results showed that, although boys and girls used the word equally frequently, they were found to use it in different ways. (Author/JL)

Examined Venezuelan children's developing abilities to use evaluative language in fictional and personal narratives. Looks at whether the use of evaluative language varies in fictional and personal narratives, there is a relationship between the use of evaluative language in these two narrative genres, and and the role children's age and…

To explore the relationship of language use and speech adaptation to role and context, the spontaneous speech of a 5-year-old boy was recorded in three different situations: playing alone, playing with a friend of the same age, and playing with his mother. (Author/SW)

Examines the conversation behavior of mothers toward their children with respect to two hypotheses: that the mothers' underlying interactional intent can be inferred from patterning in their conversation and that the utterances having a directive or controlling function will show a negative relationship to those designed to elicit conversation…

Language is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional entity involving symbolic and cognitive aspects, communicative aspects, and structural-linguistic aspects. Analysis of single-word production of three children revealed developmental changes in the salience of these aspects and differences in functional styles of language acquisition. (CHK)

Two experiments indicating that children's linguistic generalizational biases change from a semantically-based system to a syntactical-structural system provide evidence for a semantic-relational bias in children's early grammars and support the notion that children's generalizational biases shift from a semantic-relational basis to a…