Mother-Child Communication: The Function of Maternal-Language Input

Abstract

The function of maternal-language input in a female child's initial language acquisition (from birth to twenty months) was studied to determine in what ways maternal behavior and language might be specifically instructive to the child. The data studied consist of (1) parental diaries of language behavior during infancy, (2) an extensive, systematic record of daily linguistic production—including the linguistic and nonlinguistic context—from twelve to twenty months, and (3) transcriptions of tape-recorded interval samples from sixteen to twenty months