From First Words to Grammar: Individual Differences and Dissociable Mechanisms - Hardcover

'[The authors'] challenging and fruitful questioning and their innovation in methodologies will be much more valuable for the future of the field than most of the empty theoretical fabrications that are so common in developmental psycholinguistics.' Child Development Abstracts and Bibliography

This book is a comprehensive study of the passage from first words to grammar in a sample of children large enough to permit systematic analysis of individual differences in style and rate of development. The authors provide a large body of information about first words and early grammatical development in qualitative and quantitative patterns that are useful not only for researchers in the field, but for speech/language pathologists and early childhood educators interested in the assessment of early language. The results support a unified functionalist approach to language development, and have implications for the way we think about the structure and breakdown of language under normal and abnormal conditions.