Reports on the results of a two-year longitudinal study of mother-infant dyads (N=23) observed during a free-play session when infants were six and eight months of age. Children were assessed for language and intellectual outcomes during the second and third years of life. This information may help school professionals design effective strategies…

Reports that mothers' responsiveness to young infants' distress predicts language capacity at two years. Mothers' responsiveness to older infants' nondistress vocalizations predicts cognitive performance, perceived self-esteem, social competence, and family relations in preadolescents. (PCB)

This work investigated the young child's ability to respond appropriately to the intended, as opposed to the literal, meaning of one class of such utterances, requests for action. An action-based response heuristic is proposed to explain the apparent ability of two-year-olds to deal with indirect speech acts. (Author/SW)

The purposes of this study were to analyze parent involvement as it related to (1) the development of language abilities of culturally disadvantaged preschool children and (2) the intelligence test scores of these children and to analyze parent attitudes resulting from involvement. Nine hypotheses were tested. Forty-one 4-year-old Head Starters in…

Based on research in infant sign language, this book teaches parents methods of communicating with their infants through the use of simple bodily movements that signify objects, events, and needs. Noting that communication between parent and child can flourish between 9 months and 30 months, when a baby's desire to communicate outstrips the…

The proceedings of this Georgetown University Round Table on developmental psycholinguistics are divided into four sections: (1) "Children's Language Acquisition: Linguistic and Psycholinguistic Theory"; (2) "Children's Language Acquisition and Communicative Disorders"; (3) "Developmental Psycholinguistics and Second…

Children's early utterances were studied to determine whether there are developmental changes in the content, context, frequency, and form of their speech and the degree to which the changes correspond to changes in Piagetian cognitive stage. Twenty children were studied; six were 10 or 11 months old, and the remaining 14 were distributed evenly…

Revision of a paper presented at Annual Convention of National Council of Teachers of English (Milwaukee, Wis., November 29, 1968).

Most studies of language acquisition overlook the fact that a child learns language in the context of acquiring the social skill of conversing known as "turn-taking." The few studies of verbal turn-taking in children suggest that prosodic features (suprasegmentals) and turn-taking skills are integrated by the age of two years, nine months, and…

This article hypothesizes that language repetition of young children (in the sense used by Kobashigawa and Snow) does not help language acquisition. The evidence comes from the results of a prior study in which no indication was found that mothers who repeat themselves a great deal have children who acquire language more quickly. However,…

The structure of the testing condition is an important variable in measuring young children's language comprehension. This study examined effects of two testing conditions on the language comprehension scores of 24 toddlers, mean age 20.3 months. The methodology was based on the rationale that a test which allows parents to select stimuli which…

This position paper surveys recent study results on the variable effects of both socioeconomic status and parent-child relationships on the development of competence in young children. Research results imply that certain ways that parents interact with their children are more effective than others in aiding the development of a child's social,…

The personality development during the first 5 years of life consists of several stages, and each developmental phase brings with it characteristic problems. Training of the intellect must be included in the education of a child. Reason and judgment should be removed as far as possible from magic, self-gratification and egocentric motives. The…

This resource for parents uses a workbook format to provide specific ideas for parents and other caretakers to use with infants from birth to 8 months of age. Suggested activities are based on an understanding of how the brain develops during infancy and the types of stimulation that promote neural efficiency. The book begins with a discussion of…

This resource for parents and other caretakers to use with infants from 8 to 18 months provides a synthesis of research on early brain development and objective-oriented instruction as the basis for activities that promote intellectual development. Part 1 of the book provides an overview of early development, discusses general ways of enhancing…