A study was conducted to determine the relationship between maternal input to early language learners and language acquisition and to answer the following questions: (1) Does nursery language used with the child change after he begins to talk? (2) Is there reason to believe that the child's speech is influenced by or influences the mother's speech? The subjects of the study were 10 lower-class black mothers, speakers of urban language, and their children, all born during the summer of 1970. The verbal and nonverbal behavior of each mother-child pair was observed for a total of 10 hours between 1970 and 1974 by means of written transcriptions of dialogue, tape-recorded interviews, and written descriptions of behavior. Results of the study suggest that mothers' speech to children is much different from mother-to-adult speech, less complex, and less grammatically correct; that nursery language used with the child becomes more varied and less concrete as the child learns to talk; and that the child's speech is influenced by and influences the mother's speech. (PMP)