The argument for renewed theoretical development in the study of family communication has several implications. One is that researchers should concentrate on family communication as such rather than expanding generalizations from family communication to other groups and institutions; this requires grappling more specifically with the explication and testing of theoretical propositions about the ways in which family communication functions. The roster of possible hypotheses includes such empirical theories as reinforcement, selective perception, information-seeking, and de facto selective exposure. Methodologies that are quite different from those used in the past will have to be devised and employed. Firsthand observation, experimental variation, and longitudinal designs are all needed. The latter is particularly important because the greatest implications of what is known about family communication have to do with developments occurring long after the child matures and leaves the family. Both observational and experimental ingenuity are needed to test specific hypotheses about the nature of the process by which family communication patterns shape the developing child's construction of the world around him. (Author/RL)