Amount and Rate of Talking of Young Children

Abstract

The amount, rate, and quality of verbal output in children represent distinctive and interesting features of development. An ex tensive literature is available on vocabulary, average length of sentence, and sentence structure. McCarthy (5) has summarized 236 studies concerned with the language develop ment of children. Amount of talking, in ab solute rather than in relative units, has re ceived slight attention, and rate practically none. Interest in the amount of talking as a factor in individual differences and as an at tribute of social behavior is apparent in a number of the investigations. Fisher (3, p. 67), with the aid of steno graphic records, has secured data showing an increase in the mean number of remarks per child per hour in a group of preschool chil dren. Smith (8, p. 17), using abbreviated longhand recording, reports a regular rise in the total number of words per hour from about seventy-eight words at two years to a figure which is stabilized at approximately 400 words between three and one-half and five years. Relative measures of talkative ness have been secured by time-sampling techniques by Goodenough (4), Arrington (1), and Robinson and Conrad (7). The present study presents a technique for secur ing a quantitative statement of amount and rate of talking in young children where the qualitative analysis of vocabulary and sen tence structure is not desired.