Observation of language patterns parents used with their verbal (N=6) or nonverbal (N=6) autistic children revealed that mothers and fathers appeared sensitive to their child's language needs, but differed in how they accommodated them. Mothers used shorter mean lengths of utterance, more prompts, and fewer direct directives than fathers.…

When children produce regularizations like "comed," not all verbs are equally liked to be regularized. It is argued that one predictor is which vowels are present in the base form vs. the past tense form, and that regularizations are likely when the base vowel is dominant and unlikely when the past tense vowel is dominant. (Contains 25…

In a study of early functions of negation (rejection and denial), 48 children under age 3 were asked easy yes/no questions. The most likely age range for the appearance of error-free denial "no" at 1 year/8 months to 2 years/1 month supports the continuity theory of negation development. (Contains 27 references.) (Author/LB)

This study of 2.5 and 3.5 year olds indicated that children of this age do not know many names for solid substances but can be taught names for them; that children represent the names as mass nouns and possibly adjectives; and that there is development of children's nonlinguistic knowledge of substances between the ages of 2.5 and 3 years. (TJQ)

Eight 20- to 26-month-old children were exposed to 4 novel nouns in a game context over several weeks to determine whether, when, and in what ways the children would use them beyond their original linguistic forms. The majority were productive in their use of the nouns, indicating that the grammatical category for noun is operational by age 2.…

Examined the impact of an educational intervention on knowledge of speech-language development among 66 caregivers of children. An educational handout containing information about basic speech and language development milestones was provided to the intervention group. Results of pre- and posttests indicated that the intervention group increased…

The causal structure of schemas for the actions and states by different classes of English verbs was examined in the elicited narratives of 19 preschool children. Results showed that verbs within a class elicited similar narratives, whereas across classes the event descriptions varied in the animacy of the event participants and the causal…

Through analysis of chimpanzee-human discourse, study shows that four chimpanzees exposed to humanly devised symbol system use partial or complete repetition of others' symbols. They do not produce rote imitations but use repetition to fulfill variety of pragmatic functions in discourse. Theories are advanced regarding meaning of two differences…

The study analyzes four- to eight-year-old French children's acquisition of conditional verb forms. Relevant data in the literature and results of an experiment designed to gain information on the temporal meaning of young children's past conditional verb forms are presented and discussed. (25 references) (KM)

An infant girl's unusual phonological behavior was evaluated in light of a maternal model which appeared to exaggerate features of normal conversational speech. Parental responses to immature speech patterns may account for selected case study behaviors which have been reported in both the child phonology and child fluency literatures. (KM)

Describes the Human Communication Research Centre Dialogue Database. The database consists of over 700 transcribed and coded dialogues from pairs of speakers aged from 7-14. The speakers are recorded over 2 years while tackling cooperative problem-solving tasks, and the same pairs of speakers are recorded over 2 years tackling 10 different…

How young children portray themselves in relation to others was examined in naturally occurring stories of personal experience told jointly with family members. The study of 2.5- to 5-year-old culturally diverse children supported developmental theorists' claims about the relational nature of self-development when connected discourse is taken as…

Summarizes a case study of the bilingual development (Italian/English) of a child in Australia. Data consist of recordings of her natural interactions from 18 months to her fourth birthday. The study focuses on how Christina learns the strategies of everyday interaction in the two languages. This is the first study to use the Systemic Functional…

Two studies investigated two and four to five year olds' conversations to determine whether discussions about preferences differ from discussions about emotions and whether developmental differences exist in descriptions of affect. Found that children were more likely to discuss causes and consequences for emotions than for preferences. (MM)

Reviews research on quantitative and qualitative indexes of play, and relationships between play and language. Finds consistent relationships between duration and level of play throughout early development, and parallel developments in play and language. Indicates that measures of spontaneous activity and habituation in infancy predict…