This study supports the claim that environmental factors in early intervention programs can positively affect the development of early communicative behaviors in infants. A sample of 20-month-old infants from low socioeconomic backgrounds and at risk for mental retardation was randomly divided into a day care intervention group and a control group. Additionally, a middle class comparison sample was formed. Each infant was observed with his or her mother in two standardized settings: (1) a free play setting in which infant-initiated "showing" communications were recorded and (2) an experimental setting in which "requesting" communications were elicted and recorded. Results indicate that high risk infants attending day care intervention programs initiated communicative behaviors to their mothers more often than did infants receiving no day care intervention. Moreover, the frequency of the day care group's communicative behaviors was not significantly different from that in the middle class comparison sample. The developmental level at which the high risk day care infants initiated "showing" and "requesting" communicative acts was significantly more advanced than that of the high risk infants not attending day care intervention. The high risk day care infants'"requesting" communicative acts did not differ from those of the middle class sample. (Author/RH)