Relations between the non‐verbal context of maternal speech and rate of language development

This study compares maternal speech to two groups of children who showed a normal or slower rate of language development up to 24 months. Maternal speech to these children at 16 months was analysed in order to determine relations between speech and the contiguous non‐verbal context. Several differences emerged between the two groups. Mothers of children with slower language development initiated more changes in conversational topic without providing an appropriate non‐verbal context. They also made fewer references to objects which were at the child's current focus of attention and more references to objects to which the child was not attending. The children with slower language development were also presented with fewer specific object labels and more general terms such as pronouns and general nouns. Possible difficulties for the early stages of language development arising from these differences are discussed.