Investigations of the growth of children's communicative behavior and ability, in terms of their interactions with media and their communication with other people, are described in this book. The first chapter presents an overview of the studies, explains the developmental perspective that characterizes them, and identifies some issues fundamental to studying how children communicate as they grow older. The remaining eight chapters report research results relating to the following topics: children's comprehension of television content; the way media symbols partake in the development of children's abilities; children's television attention patterns; children's understanding of television characters; the development of communication in children; language and cognition in the developing child; a model for assessing mass media effects, and its application in determining how adolescents are affected by media content related to their stage in the life cycle; and the young child as consumer. (GT)