Teacher verbal mediation which might be associated with children's elaborated-restricted code use was described in 20 early childhood classrooms. Three teacher mediation patterns were identified. Data collected by RELAB, an instrument derived from Bernstein's coding categories, recorded 4,135 child statements, eight classroom contexts and eight child variables. Correlational tests, factorial analysis of variance and contrast vector tests indicated that: (1) teacher mediation scores were strongly associated with child code use (.01); (2) teacher mediation patterns were significantly different from each other (.01). Findings support Bernstein but differ from Gahagans' conclusion of no-difference in teacher verbal mediation. The discovery that SES was the child characteristic most strongly associated with children's coding shift strongly supports Bernstein's identification of the mediating role of the adult in transmission of speech codes. (Author)