This chapter, to be included in "Carmichael's Manual of Child Psychology," edited by P.A. Mussen, deals with the connection between the acquisition of language and the growth of intellect, and the connection between both of these and the process of maturation. The author feels that various theories of development cannot account for the child's…

The three basic language learning models are the rote-memory model (prescriptive), the abilities model (behavioristic), and the critical age model. If this last model, a deterministic one based on observable facts about the human condition, becomes as popular in American schools as it is in British schools, language will become an important aspect…

This paper reports data for voice onset time (VOT) for /d/ and /t/, from six children at average age 3;0. Values for /d/ clearly achieve the short voicing lag category of adults, reported previously. Values for /t/, however, are much more varied, although falling within the category long voicing lag. (CHK)

Data are presented that reflect a particular strategy used by a boy from age 1;10 to 2;2 to manage certain polysyllabic words. Analysis shows that substitution was not involved, and an interpretation is made in terms of "underlying forms." Details of the strategy and its component sub-strategies are presented. (CHK)

This paper represents an effort to explain the language development of the child within the analytic frame of overtly observable data and without recourse either to mathematical models or to postulating hypothetical underlying forms. From longitudinal studies of two-year old children conducted by the author as well as from similar data reported in…

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)

Examined the relationship between infants' early verbal imitation, when the ability to copy behaviors first emerges, and their lexical development during the second year of life. Twenty infants were examined longitudinally at ages 10, 13, 17, and 21 months. Suggests that infants' early imitation of words not in their repertoires predicts and may…

Investigated developmental change in symbolic representational ability by examining infants' imitation of vocalizations, words, visible motor actions, and nonvisible motor behaviors at ages 10, 13, 17, and 21 months. Results revealed a pattern of increasing imitation, supporting the view that a domain-independent representational capacity develops…

Two experiments examined toddlers' noun vocabularies and interpretations of names for solid and non-solid items. Results indicated that one side of the solidity-syntax-category organization mapping was favored. Seventeen- to 33-month olds do not systematically generalize names for solid things by shape similarity until they already know many…

Speech discrimination by 12 children aged about 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 years was tested, using the discrimination learning procedure of Shvachkin's 1948 Russian study. Recent work on the acquisition of syntax and semantics shows an ordered acquisition for linguistic items; this pilot study was to test whether the ability to discriminate between consonants…

Forty children each from nursery school, first grade, and third grade participated in a study of the use of symbolic mediators in the control of overt behavior of children with internal and external locus of control. Each child participated in three different verbal control tasks: a push-button task, a pounding-board task, and a serial-recall…

Indicates that 18- to 20-month-old infants can detect the correspondence between auditorially and visually perceived speech; that is, they manifest some of the components related to lip-reading phenomena in adults. This demonstration of the bimodal perception of speech in infancy has important implications for social, cognitive, and linguistic…

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)

Tested a normally developing child several times between 16 and 27 months of age for his ability to derive the relations between stimuli. Found that the child derived "mutual entailment" relations and showed "nonverbal exclusion" as early as 17 months. "Combinatorial entailment" relations and "verbal…

The purposes of this study include: (1) determining whether socioeconomic status (SES) or verbal ability (VA) exerts greater influence on childrens' performance of Piagetian tasks; (2) devising an instrument for measuring childrens' level of cognitive development which does not depend on verbal ability alone; and (3) adapting materials for teacher…