This panel discussion seeks to determine the role of babbling and of nonlinguistic behavior in language acquisition. A central question is whether there is a continuity between babbling and speech. The paper presents the views that: the infant's ability to assimilate and adapt to his environment antedates the maturation of his visual and auditory…

Data are presented from one subject (J) that show a gradual development of the complexity of words in terms of syllable structure and degree of phonetic similarity of co-occurring consonants. During the age range of 1;9 to 2;6, J's data show a highly systematic progression of stages, each characterized by fewer restrictions on the number, order,…

This paper reports the results of a preliminary study dealing with the ways in which children between ages 6 and 7 organize spoken language. In particular, aspects of the temporal and segmental structure of polysyllabic English words containing the syllable C/jul/, as in the word "pediculous," are dealt with. This study is based on the assumption…

This paper reports on a longitudinal study of the acquisition of the voicing contrast in American-English work-initial stop consonants, as revealed through instrumental analysis of voice onset time characteristics. Four monolingual children were recorded at approximately two week intervals, beginning when the children were about 1;6. Data provide…

The data in this study are taken from an on-going research project investigating the development of the production of intervocalic consonants in Mexican Spanish. The total project includes both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of forty children and uses both naturalistic observation and experimental methods. The data discussed here is from…

Early child phonology was studied using phonetically transcribed samples that six parents provided of their children's vocalizations, beginning when the children were about 11 months old and continuing to four years of age. The primary study objective was to obtain a sufficient amount of longitudinal data from several children to support a…