Mothers' speech to children and syntactic development: some simple relationships
Abstract
This study investigated the relationships between children's linguistic environments and their language acquisition. Speech samples taken from seven firstborn children and their mothers when the children were 1; 6 and 2; 3 were analysed within a number of semantic and syntactic categories to determine correlations between mothers' speech and subsequent language development. Several characteristics of mothers' speech (e.g. utterance length, use of pronouns) significantly predicted later child speech. The significant correlations suggested that mothers' choice of simple constructions facilitated language growth. Further, they showed that the motherese code differed from adult-adult speech in ways which aided language development. Differences between our study and previous investigations of environmental effects on language development probably resulted from the failure of earlier investigations to take into account children's level of language competence at the time when environmental effects were assessed.
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Studies have indicated that children benefit from exposure to short and simple utterances at the early stage of learning.
“Studies also have indicated that children would benefit from exposure to short and simple utterances at the early stage of learning (e.g., Berko-Gleason, 1977; Furrow et al., 1979).”
From The roles of L1 transfer, L2 exposure, and morphological salience in bilingual children's L2 English morphological development (2025) · cites this paper as Furrow et al., 1979
Cites
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How social contexts support and shape language development☆
HOFF, E. (2006) · Developmental Review · doi:10.1016/j.dr.2005.11.002 · Cited by 1,853 · see citing works
A construction based analysis of child directed speech
Cameron‐Faulkner, T., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2003) · Cognitive Science · doi:10.1207/s15516709cog2706_2 · Cited by 527 · see citing works
Motherese in Interaction: At the Cross-Road of Emotion and Cognition? (A Systematic Review)
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Turn the page please: Situation-specific language acquisition
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Maltreated children’s language and speech development: Abused, neglected, and abused and neglected
Culp, R. E., Watkins, R. V., Lawrence, H., Letts, D., Kelly, D. J., & Rice, M. L. (1991) · First Language · doi:10.1177/014272379101103305 · Cited by 129 · see citing works
Wang, X., McMillen, S., & Shi, Y. (2025) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1566442 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Furrow, D., Nelson, K., & Benedict, H.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- Michigan State University (US)
- ORCID
- Nelson, Katherine
- Venue
- Journal of Child Language
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 1979-10
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 423-442
- ISSN
- 0305-0009 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-7602
- OpenAlex
- W2150209027
- Cited by
- 318
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 9.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Child Language (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
- Keywords
- child-directed speech, maternal speech, syntactic development, child language acquisition, language environment, utterance length, pronoun usage, firstborn children, language competence
- MeSH terms
- Child Language, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Infant, Language Development, Linguistics, Male, Mother-Child Relations, Social Environment, Verbal Behavior
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