ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: THE GROWTH OF LOQUACITY AND VOCABULARY1

Abstract

This study deals with the growth of talkativeness and vocabulary during preschool years. The subjects were 88 twoto five-year-old children, above average in intelligence, enrolled in the nursery schools of the Child Development Institute during the period from 1928 to 1934. In the case of 73 children, the data include a verbatim record of the language used by the child during three mornings in the nursery school, representing approximately nine hours; each of the remaining 15 children was observed during two mornings, or for a period of about six hours. These language records, which include what amounts to a rather lengthy booklet for each child, have been compiled under the auspices of the Child Development Institute. The data they contain may be approached from several angles. This study deals primarily with amount of talking and size of vocabulary as related to each other and to such factors as age, sex and intelligence. An earlier study by Fisher,3 based upon data available at the time for seventytwo of the present 88 children, dealt mainly with an analysis of sentence structure and with the egocentricity and sociability of children as revealed by their language.4 In an earlier study by Caille5 a number of the records were analyzed in an investigation of resistant behavior; and the records were used also as a supplement to Murphy's study of sympathy,6 and they are being analyzed from other points of view in a study, now in progress, by Peterson of imaginative behavior and in a study by Fite and Jersild of children's adjustments in the nursery school.7 Nature of the Data. The methods used in gathering the data have been described by Fisher, and need only be indicated briefly here. During each of the different days devoted to a given child, the child was followed by a person who was experienced both as a stenographer and as an observer of children. The child was observed from the time he entered school in the morning until he had finished his lunch and was ready for his afternoon nap. All vocalizations or remarks made during this time were recorded exactly as they sounded to the observer. The record also included an account of the situation in which each item of language occurred, of the language or behavior of playmates or of teachers, and of other events transpiring in the child's environment. An effort was made to complete all three of the records for each child within a single week. In seventy-one per cent of the cases, all records were completed within a week or less, but in the remaining instances, more than a week (and as