Two studies of concept development and categorization among 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old children suggest that concept formation is a socially guided process involving convergence on an adult model. Convergence in labeling is an early strategy for shaping children's category boundaries, while later, more elaborate linguistic means are used to differentiate and integrate members of categories. These devices include constructions like anchors and hedges, and serve a social function in that they are used to teach conventional category organization. The results of a sentence acceptance task show that children are able to use this information and that convergence on the adult network is sensitive to this measure. It is proposed that by constraining the use of these devices during the teaching period, it may be possible to test for a clear relationship between individual differences in parental use of these devices and variations in children's cognitive development in future research. (MSE)