A communicative repair has been defined as the ability to persist in communication and to modify, repeat, or revise a signal when the initial communication attempt failed. From an operant perspective, initial communicative acts and communicative repairs can be considered members of a response class in which each response produces the same outcome.…

Differential language development and preparation for school among young children of different racial and social groups has been asserted for decades. A study focused on mother-child interaction in two common activities: reading children's books and telling narratives about both shared and unshared experiences. A socially diverse group of 46…

Addresses how affective facial expression interacts with the linguistic forms in American Sign Language (ASL) motherese. The article presents data from both cross-sectional and longitudinal interaction from 15 deaf mothers signing with their deaf toddlers. Findings indicate a shift from affect to grammar at about the child's second birthday. (59…

This book investigates children's security of attachment in infancy and its relationship to their cognitive development in the preschool years, presenting evidence that caregivers' proclivity to treat their infants as mental agents and to attribute intentionally to their behavior is critical to their child's cognitive development. The book…

Theoretical correspondences between the language and play development of young children and developmental aspects of play and speech are discussed prior to a report of a study comparing categories of cognitive complexity nested within social categories of solitary play and self speech. Participants were 36 preschool boys and girls approximately…

Discusses pre-linguistic and linguistic stages of language acquisition that are part of a continuum of receptivity and communication every child experiences in the first 3 years of life. Suggests parents assist language development by being sympathetic to each developmental turning point, providing the right emotional climate for expression, and…

This study investigated the earliest manifestations of verb tense and agreement in English-speaking children, using longitudinal data on the language of four children aged 1:6 to 3:5 years, drawn from a child-language database. Analysis focused on one aspect of inflectional phrase (IP), the children's use of the verbs "be" and "do" forms to mark…

Papers on child language development include: "Sentence Frame Effects on Children's Category Judgments" (Alison K. Adams); "Color Similarity in Children's Classifications and Extension of Object Labels" (Dare Baldwin); "Situational Properties of Early Verb Meaning" (Pol Cuvelier); "Similarity, Specificity, and…

One of the biggest changes in the lives of children in the United States is the increasing number of infants and toddlers who are cared for outside the home during work hours. This book provides a compilation of information and discussions from a meeting of the National Center for Early Development and Learning, held annually to convene experts…