In dealing with children's language, this document provides a picture of how language is considered in child development, how children differ in their use of language, and how attitudes about children's language tend to be developed. The document may be used for any inservice program on children's speech (directly observable vocal behaviors), language (the underlying knowledge of relations between sounds and meanings), or dialects. Suggested activities are listed at the end of each chapter. Samples of children's speech are also presented, in the text and on the accompanying records, as examples of points in the discussion. This discussion focuses on the following main topics: the new view of language, the sounds of children's speech, language variation, the sounds of Black English, the native Spanish-speaking child, and language attitudes. (JM)