Investigated individual variation in child vocabulary competence, evaluating mothers' sociodemographics, personalities, and vocabulary and children's' gender, social competence, and vocabulary competence. Specific aspects of children and mothers accounted for variation in child vocabulary knowledge and use. Child's gender and social competence and…

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)

This article discusses the popular belief that girls are more advanced in language development than boys. (Author/NCR)

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)

A study is described, the results of which indicate that mothers can recognize the cries of their own infants from tape-recorded cry samples with few instances of confusion, and that the sex of an unknown infant cannot be reliably identified using a simple auditory identification paradigm. (Author/RM)

Examination of the speech of eight mothers and eight fathers to their one- to two-year-olds (N=8) indicated that, while paternal speech was not more diverse than maternal speech, paternal speech did show greater use of rare vocabulary and lower use of common vocabulary. (Author/CB)

The speech children spontaneously quote was examined in 2 studies involving personal narratives from 96 children aged 4 to 9 and speech in 25 children aged 1 to 5. Findings showed that frequency of reported speech increased with age and direct quotation was more common than indirect or summarized quotations at all ages. (57 references) (Author/LB)

Analysis of parent language with toddlers with three different types of toys found few differences as a function of parent or child gender. The three contexts elicited their own language patterns and suggested that children who play frequently with dolls receive more opportunities to learn and practice language. (Author/CB)