The ''ba, ba, ba'' sound universal to babies' babbling around 7 months captures scientific attention because it provides insights into the mechanisms underlying language acquisition and vestiges of its evolutionary origins. Yet the prevailing mystery is what is the biological basis of babbling, with one hypothesis being that it is a non-linguistic…

The conferencee discussions and papers presented in this volume reflect the opinions and research of 20 authorities in the field of communication development. These authorities offer new perspectives on nonverbal communication, speech reception and production, and the development of language and thought. To provide a better understanding of…

Infants raised the pitch of their vocalizations when stimulated by vocalizing parents. Nonvocal stimulation did not repeat the effect. Intonation contours did not change during different conditions. The pitch of the parents' vocalizations also rose during vocal interaction. Changes in infant pitch were interpreted as a function of imitation.…

This paper presents a system for synthesizing the educational objectives of infant curricula and illustrates the procedure by reviewing the synthesis of several specific objectives of the Carolina Infant Curriculum. Five sources are used in the synthetic process: (1) consumer opinions, (2) developmental theory, (3) developmental facts, (4)…

Based on the premise that children learn language best in daily playful interactions with people, this guide for parents and professionals was designed to assist them in working with a child who is beginning to talk or who is not using language very much in their social and learning lives, especially with children with disabilities. The bulk of…

This study examined behavioral development during the first year of life of 41 infants diagnosed with cerebral palsy, hypotonia, or hypertonia. The KID Scale, an empirically normed, caregiver-report inventory which covers behavior in five domains (cognitive, motor, language, self help, and social) was administered at about 5, 9, and 12 months…

Effects of mothers' contingent and non-contingent vocal stimulation on vocalization and looking behavior was investigated in 10 Down's Syndrome infants. Neither condition increased infant vocalization but results suggest that looking behavior may be an important indication of competence in pre-linguistic social communication for developmentally…

In two experiments, infants 9-17 months of age were probed for recognition of a previously unfamiliar trained name. Responses were videotaped and scored for gaze, gesture, and vocalization. Results demonstrate improvement in receptive language capacity over the age range studied. (RMH)

Examined whether the characteristics in perception of speech sounds found in preverbal hearing infants might extend to the perception of signed language in infants with congenital deafness. Seventeen Japanese mother-infant dyads participated in the study. Found that infants with deafness showed greater attentional and affective responsiveness to…

Linguistic and cognitive development of 26 premature and 27 full-term infants was studied longitudinally over the first 3 years of life. Patterns of lexical and cognitive development did not differ substantially between groups, nor did standard language test measures indicate differences at the study's end except with very low birthweight…

Developmental kinesics is the acquisition of nonverbal conversational behavior by the child. Semiotics is the study of what behavior means. Together they express the relationship of content and expression. Physiologically, verbal language and paralanguage represent the vocal-auditory mode, while kinesics represents the gestural-visual mode.…

The early communication network existing between a mother and her 12-week-old infant was explored. Over 50 infants of both sexes from a variety of social classes were seen in their homes, and a wide variety of maternal and infant behaviors were studied. Of special interest was the vocalization-in-communication data. The results indicate a lawful,…

Noting that parents are ultimately responsible for teaching their infants how to communicate with the world and that many parents lack the information needed to determine if their children are developing speech and language skills as they should, this book shows parents how to enhance their infant's language development using a system that…

A study was undertaken on the effects of a specific parent administered infant language stimulation program, beginning at birth, on the longitudinal development of 60 normal first born infants. All infants and their environments were tested in their homes at 6 weeks and at 6 months utilizing the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and the HOME…

This guide is comprised of activities designed to assist parents in facilitating the language development of typically developing children or children with communication problems, to assist teachers and child care providers in effectively communicating with preverbal children, and to assist speech/language professionals in including preverbal…