A study was conducted to analyze the language behavior of mothers of children with normal language development and mothers of children with delayed language development as they interacted with their children to determine if the two groups of mothers provided different linguistic inputs for their children. Two randomly selected groups of children from two to five years of age (14 normal and 14 language delayed) and their mothers participated in the study. The language of both groups of mothers, as they interacted with their children in a structured task situation and an unstructured free play situation, was audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed. The findings indicated that the mothers of the language delayed children were providing much of the same linguistic information as the mothers of the normal children. These mothers, however, were providing their children with shorter utterances, used fewer questions, and provided fewer utterances signifying acceptance and more signifying rejection than did the mothers of the normal children. (Author/FL)