Our motivation was to examine how toddler (2;6) and adult speakers of American English prosodically realize information status categories. The aims were three-fold: (1) to analyze how adults phonologically make information status distinctions; (2) to examine how these same categories are signaled in toddlers' spontaneous speech; and (3) to analyze…

Typically, the point vowels [i,?,u] are acoustically more peripheral in infant-directed speech (IDS) compared to adult-directed speech (ADS). If caregivers seek to highlight lexically relevant contrasts in IDS, then two sounds that are contrastive should become more distinct, whereas two sounds that are surface realizations of the same underlying…

Eight children aged 4;1-8;1 and their primary caregivers participated in a study designed to evaluate their use of the onset cluster /str-/ in both read and conversational speech. The cluster is currently undergoing a reported sound change in many varieties of English, with the initial /s/ being retracted to [?]. The study compared the initial…

Stoel-Gammon (this issue) highlights the close and symbiotic association that exists between the lexical and phonological domains in early linguistic development. Her comprehensive review considers two bodies of literature: (1) child-centred studies; and (2) studies based on adult psycholinguistic research. Within the child-centred studies, both…

In her interesting article, Stoel-Gammon (this issue) reviews studies concerning the interactions between lexical and phonological development. While the focus of the review is on vocabulary production from children acquiring American English, she also suggests that cross-linguistic research be undertaken to examine how universal and…

The production of third-person /s/ on English verbs seems to be ahead of comprehension. Mainstream American English (MAE) is contrasted with African American English (AAE), in which /s/ is rarely supplied. Two studies explored what information children get solely from /s/ on the end of a verb. Sixty-five MAE- and 65 AAE-speaking four- to…

Early language comprehension may be one of the most important predictors of developmental risk. The need for performance-based assessment is predicated on limitations identified in the exclusive use of parent report and on the need for a performance measure with which to assess the convergent validity of parent report of comprehension. Child…

Conversations between mothers and children in Japanese and North American cultures were conducted to account for the way in which cultural narrative style is transmitted to children. The contrasts yielded from the study are described. (JL)

Two studies were conducted, one to judge the relative ages of pairs of vocalizations from Chinese and American infants of varying ages, the other to judge the linguistic community of the vocalizer when age was held constant. Judgments were highly accurate in the first study, but not in the second. (Author/RM)

Comparison of maternal speech to three-month-olds between American (N=20) and Japanese (N=20) mother-infant dyads revealed that infant gaze affected the intended functions of maternal speech differently for the two groups. Cultural differences were also seen in the nature of function-form and function-referent relationships. (Author/CB)

Presents a diary-and-videotape study of the production of phonological segments by a Spanish-English bilingual child. Results reveal a consistent separation of the phonological systems of the two languages from the earliest period, with minimal interference at later times. (17 references) (Author/CK)

This study of the acquisition of kinship terms in English is a test of the hypothesis that lexical items are learned in their order of complexity and of the validity of relational analysis in predicting the order of the acquisition of kinship terms. Earlier studies of kinship terms, Piaget's in particular, are first discussed, as well as the…

Investigates the potential interaction of conceptual representations and linguistic systems during language acquisition. The study examined language-thought interactions in American, Finnish and Polish children, focusing on the conceptual and linguistic development of space and time. Findings reveal that spatial and temporal linguistic systems and…