Two studies were conducted to discover possible patterns in question acquisition. For the production study, questions were collected from 22 children aged two to eleven. In the comprehension study, 100 children, aged three to five, were tested. The test controlled syntax and vocabulary and varied specific "wh-" question-words. (Author/RM)

Describes a study that examines the effect of an adult-child discourse structure on the word combination produced by 17 children at the single-word utterance level. There was a significant difference between pretest and posttest multiword production for the experimental group of six children, but no difference for the control group. (SED)

Describes a study of 40 monolingual Spanish-speaking Peruvian children in which comprehension of six locative phrases was tested. Results are analyzed in terms of developmental sequence, locative acquisition, the effects of intrinsic label on projective locative comprehension, the effects of linguistic form, and the effects of context. (SED)

Describes the formation of the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES), a system formed to foster the sharing of computerized data on language acquisition. Details the governance of the system, the nature of the database, the shape of the coding conventions, and the types of computer programs being developed. (SED)

Describes a study which examined the relationship between mother's speech and the rate of child syntax growth for 22 two-and-a-half-year-old children. Results suggest that linguistic experience does contribute to syntax development but that the relation between linguistic input and language growth is different for different domains of language and…

This research disputes the traditional position on babbling by showing that the phonetic content of babbled utterances exhibits many of the same preferences for certain kinds of phonetic elements and sequences that have been found in the production of meaningful speech by children in later stages of language development. (Author/RM)

In this longitudinal investigation of the emerging grammar of seven children, differences in linguistic acquisition were observed. Analyses revealed two distinct styles of syntactic acquisition that appeared to be sex- and speed-related with specific ties to particular utterance types and grammatical-relational specification. (Author/RM)

This case study of two Latvian children attempts to show how the parental terms for"mummy" and "daddy" in Latvian are acquired, paying particular attention to the changing relationship between the input and output forms during the acquisition process. (Author/RM)

The phonotactic development of one child is traced from age 3;9 to 5;3. Data are presented in a table indicating both the child's phonological equivalent of adult consonant sequences and the range distinguished by the child at a given stage. (CHK)

Examines the relationship between adult recasts of child utterances and the child's acquisition of syntactic structures. Results indicate that maternal recasts of specific morphemes were related to the acquisition of those specific morphemes during certain developmental periods, whereas other grammatical morphemes were facilitated by expansions…

The nature of early games and how they might assist the infant in language acquisition were explored in a longitudinal study of two mother-infant dyads, using video-recordings of their free play. The analysis of appearance and disappearance games was particularly revealing. (EJS)

The hypothesis explains the early lexical development of children and the predictions of this hypothesis are shown to be consistent with available data on overextension. (Author/NCR)

This paper represents a partial condensation of the results of a study covering 14 months in a Russian-speaking child's phonological development. Evidence supports a theory of phonological acquisition formulated by Olmsted (1971), and offers detailed information on the child's acquisition of specific phones. (CHK)

Describes a study to determine: (1) the relationship between age and mean length of utterance measured in morphemes (MLU) in a group of normally developing two- and three-year-old chidren; (2) the standard error of MLU; (3) the relationship between MLU and age; and, (4) the ability of MLU to predict children's grammatical development. (SED)

This study aimed to determine the average ages at which children imitate, produce and comprehend passive constructions. Previous findings that imitation precedes comprehension, which precedes production, are confirmed in this study for children aged 3-8. (CHK)