The following are sketched in outline form: (1) functional antecedents and their implications for language--assimilation, accommodation, circular reactions/ feedback processes, classification, discrimination, functional equivalence, representation, transformation, communications; (2) semantic antecedents and their implications for language--human…

Compares two types of semantic development (the acquisition of disappearance words and success-failure words) to performance on two types of cognitive tasks (object-permanence and means-ends tasks) among infants. (HOD)

This study examined the social labels which are first used by infants, social differentiation on the basis of labeling behavior, and overgeneralization of social labels. Subjects were 81 infants from 9 to 36 months of age. The 9- to 24-month-olds were shown slides of themselves, their mothers, their fathers, and unfamiliar children, babies, and…

Notes that children are "wired" to learn, and cites research indicating the importance of talking to an infant for his or her neuron and subsequent cognitive development. Suggests reading aloud, providing positive feedback, responding verbally to the child's actions, and increasing vocabulary. (HTH)

This paper describes a study which examined the performance of 48 pairs of 18-month-old twins on the Mental Development Scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development to determine whether score differences would be found for the three subgroups of identical, fraternal same-sexed, and fraternal opposite-sexed twins. Of the 96 subjects, 46 (23…

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…

Attempts to determine whether children can use social-pragmatic cues to determine "what kind" of referent, object, or action an adult intends to indicate with a novel word. Doubts that children assume that a novel word refers to whatever nameless object is present. Suggests that lexical acquisition rests fundamentally on children's…

Examines whether knowledge of functional properties of a referent for a new name influences children's first guesses about whether that name refers to an object or a substance. Suggests that children do not rely on a single source of information, but rather draw on various kind of information, including perceptual characteristics of the entities…

Linguistic and cognitive development of 26 premature and 27 full-term infants was studied longitudinally over the first 3 years of life. Patterns of lexical and cognitive development did not differ substantially between groups, nor did standard language test measures indicate differences at the study's end except with very low birthweight…

Paralinguistic and kinesic expression begin at birth and are essential to the development of language. Rhythm, for example, a suprasegmental event, appears to be present at birth or prior to birth. The relationship of physiology to communication is evident in the observations of extra-linguistic aspects of communication, such as movement, the use…

To determine the relative effectiveness of different methods of preschool educational intervention for disadvantaged children, comparisons were made of five programs whose levels of structure ranged from the traditional nursery school to a highly structured preschool. Subjects were 79 4-year-olds representing a wide range of ability levels.…

Examined the extent to which maternal linguistic input enabled children to use syntactic bootstrapping. Studied uses of 25 common verbs in speech of 57 mothers to their 1-year olds and 2-year olds. Found that verbs can be used to create informative syntactic frames, syntactic frames can cue appropriate verb class, and multiple syntactic framing…

Activities of the Institute for Development of Human Resources provide the information contained in this document. This first large-scale project of the institute was in parent education of disadvantaged mothers in the north central Florida area. The purpose of the project was to investigate a way in which early intervention into the lives of…