The purpose of this study was to establish a set of normative data (growth curve and centiles) for the Infant Monitor of vocal Production (IMP) using a representative population of infants with typically developing hearing. A linear mixed effect model and regression was used to derive 'stage-for-age' trajectory and growth centiles from the…

Describes a study which examined the relationship between mother's speech and the rate of child syntax growth for 22 two-and-a-half-year-old children. Results suggest that linguistic experience does contribute to syntax development but that the relation between linguistic input and language growth is different for different domains of language and…

Reviews research to date dealing with attempts to conceptualize a framework for analysis of communication skills acquired in early childhood years. (MH)

This book concerns a neglected aspect of the education of bilingual children, namely, their potential desire and ability to learn to read before age 5. The basis of the study is considered in the chapter on children as early learners, which provides accounts of children being taught to read from the age of 6 months to 4 years. The next part of the…

The nature of early games and how they might assist the infant in language acquisition were explored in a longitudinal study of two mother-infant dyads, using video-recordings of their free play. The analysis of appearance and disappearance games was particularly revealing. (EJS)

Examined relationships between early vocabulary composition, early language use, and properties of mothers' child-directed speech at 10 words. Found that, when the effects of the child on the mother at 10 words was controlled, there was a negative correlation between mothers' production of speech illustrating word boundaries and the percentage of…

Face-to-face communication makes up only a small proportion of an infant's diurnal transactions with his environment, but it is viewed as crucial to his total development. Research was conducted in which adult and infant behaviors were videotaped, and their interactions were analyzed. (Author/HP)

Analyzes dialogs between mothers and their deaf or hearing children, while controlling for child age and linguistic ability. Results showed that the conversational interaction in mother-child dyads with deaf children was more restricted than that with hearing children. This seemed to be related to the linguistic ability of the deaf children. (SED)

Normal and abnormal language development depends to a great degree on the nature of the infant-mother relationship. (Author)

The speech of two mothers to their infants between three and eighteen months was analyzed. Simplicity of speech was about the same at all ages, not showing abrupt change as children began to talk. It is suggested that mothers used a conversational model and changes reflect children's growing conversational ability. (CHK)

This study investigated whether mothers' responses to their infants' gestures play a role in their infants' vocabulary development. Eight infants were observed interacting at home with their mothers on 2 occasions, when the infants were 10 to 12 months old, and 16 to 18 months old. Videotapes of the observations were transcribed and coded for…

A study investigated several questions concerning the amount of viewing and types of programs children and parents watched alone and together and the relation of viewing patterns to children's development. Investigated over a 2-year period were coviewing patterns, differences between younger and older children in their viewing with parents,…

Examined the communicative behavior of 40 maltreated and nonmaltreated 31-month-old toddlers and their mothers. Results revealed that maltreated toddlers followed a pattern of shorter mean length of utterance, less descriptive speech, and proportionally less relevant speech. (RJC)

This paper provides a brief outline of some of the constituents of speech, language, and universal stages of the development of talking in children up to the age of 2 1/2 years. Mention is made of theories put forward to account for universal aspects of speech and language development; recent research into the way adults talk to very small…

This study of final-consonant repetitions in the speech of a young child supports the notion that some speech disfluencies may result from parental attempts to accelerate phonological development. An analysis of 12 half-hour-long observations over a year is presented and discussed in terms of the home environment. (Author/KM)