Since research indicates that young children influence their mothers and that mothers may exert indirect influences on their children's language learning, this correlational, longitudinal study was conducted to identify indirect routes through which early maternal speech was related to later child language development. Participants were 10 children in Brown's early stage 1 of language learning and the children's mothers. Mean chronological age of the children when the study began was 22 months; their mean length of utterance was 1.13. For each mother and child dyad, two free-play sessions occurring 5 months apart, here called time 1 and time 2, were videotaped in the subjects' homes. Pragmatic language use by mothers was coded from time 1 sessions. Child language level was coded at both sessions. Findings indicated that six of the eight correlations between mother interaction style and later child language development could be explained through a common relation with a child language variable at time 1. Results indicated that a mother-driven, direct influence model may be inappropriate for many mother speech-child language development relationships. Concluding remarks present logical arguments demonstrating that child-driven and mother-driven models explaining the indirect relationships are equally feasible. (RH)