The inductivist model of language acquisition was tested by comparing the linguistic development of impulsive kindergarten children with that of reflective children, who, in general, make fewer errors on inductive reasoning tasks. The 81 children sampled were tested with the Matching Familiar Figures Test and with measures of syntactic and semantic development from the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. Measures of rate of speech, number of long pauses, shoulder orientation, and physical distance between the child and the experimenter were also obtained. Results failed to establish any relationship between cognitive style and the linguistic measures, or between cognitive style and the measures of nonverbal behavior. The results were interpreted as discrediting the inductivist model of language acquisition without necessarily confirming the cognitivist model. (AA)