Two experiments examined young children's sensitivity to linguistic contexts in which particular function morphemes occur. Results showed that children who did not produce articles in spontaneous speech were able to distinguish between sentences, verbally presented in picture identification tasks, that contained grammatical articles and those that…

The vocalizations of 51 infants were videorecorded and coded according to their communicative contexts. The distribution of communicative codes across seven major categories was found to be different for different age groups. Analysis indicated that vocal communication follows an orderly developmental sequence in normally developing infants in the…

Children of 18 months classified as secure or insecure/avoidant by means of the Ainsworth Strange Situation were observed at home and in a playgroup. Teachers and observers rated girls classified as insecure/avoidant as being more difficult to deal with and having more difficulty with peers than girls rated as securely attached. (PCB)

Analysis of natural language data from children up to six years of age revealed that by the third year, children clearly distinguished between reality and a variety of nonreal contrasts in their everyday speech. An experimental study in which children were questioned about the reality and appearance of a variety of items confirmed findings of the…

This study of 59 children (ages 1-3) at risk for severe mental retardation suggests that subjects exhibited repetitive motor behaviors topographically similar to those exhibited in typical infant development; there were significant age differences in expression of these behaviors; and a small percentage of these children exhibited atypical…

A three-year longitudinal study compared children exposed to somewhat more musical influences with those exposed to little singing or music in nursery school settings. Findings indicated that the experimental group exceeded control group in frequency of vocalizations, rhythmic movements, initiations of social contact, and positive emotional…

This study examined the relationship between prelinquistic vocalization and expressive vocabulary one year later in 58 toddlers (ages 17- to 34-months old). Rate of vocalizations, rate of vocalizations with consonants, and rate of vocalizations used interactively were all positively related to later expressive vocabulary. (Author/DB)

Examines maternal modes of organizing an imminent emotional event, a brief separation from the child. Finds that the mothers displayed two ways of structuring the future event, and these different modes were related statistically to the gender of the child. Investigates how the mother directs the child's mental processes by using augments of…

Examined relationship between emotion regulation at ages 5, 10, and 18 months, and compliance at 30 months. Found that infants with low levels of regulatory behavior were more likely to be noncompliant as toddlers. High cardiac vagal tone was related to noncompliance to toy clean-up, whereas low cardiac vagal tone was related to noncompliance to…

Vocabulary growth from age 2 to 3 years was studied in 28 late talkers, using expressive vocabulary inventories reported bimonthly on the Language Development Survey (LDS). (Author/VWL)

This study interviewed 39 mothers of young children with autism of whom 19 reported their children had experienced developmental regression, especially in verbal and non-verbal communication and social skills. Mean age of regression was 24 months. There was little difference between children who regressed and those who did not in maternal…

Analyzes the negative utterances made by German-speaking children in transcripts of spontaneous speech. Results indicate that German-speaking children distinguish between "nicht" and "nein," using "nicht" in sentence-medial position for sentential negation and "nein" in sentence-initial position for anaphoric negation. (Author/VWL)

A study involving eight toddlers (aged 22 months) with hearing loss found significant correlations between the children's receptive vocabulary sources and other subscales of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory, as well as other measures of language, aspects of nonverbal cognition, and an assessment of symbolic play skills. (Contains…

A study involving 19 children with hearing impairments found that those who developed intelligible speech by 36 months had at 16-23 months a high frequency of vocal utterances, a high proportion of vocal utterances that included intelligible true words, a large consonant inventory, and a high percentage of intonational utterances. (Contains…

Employed a new methodology to test children's ability to produce metaphors incorporated into metaphoric compounds. In two studies, 59 children aged between 2 and 6 years, and 34 adults participated in elicited production tasks. Results show that children have an early ability to use metaphoric language, but the significant developmental change…