The social-interactional context of maternal speech to infants: an explanation for the event-bound nature of early word use?

Eight mother-infant pairs were videotaped in a longitudinal study. Analysis of relations between maternal speech and the contiguous nonverbal context revealed that the pattern of close correspondence between conversational topic and context, which had emerged at nine months, persisted at sixteen months, with the majority of changes in topic being in response to an action carried out by the child. A large proportion of maternal utterances continued to refer to objects and activities which were at the child's focus of attention; although, at sixteen months, mothers less often accompanied comments on the child's activity with supporting actions of their own. These findings are discussed in the light of studies of early lexical development.