The functions of maternal verbal responses to prelinguistic infants as predictors of early communicative and linguistic development

Maternal overall verbal responsiveness to prelinguistic infants at 0;10 was analysed by categorizing responses according to their function. In addition, the predictive validity of the response categories to the child’s communicative and linguistic development at 1;0 was examined. The participants were 27 Finnish-speaking mothers and their first-born infants. The results indicated several predictive relations between the functions of maternal verbal responses and child communicative and linguistic development, while maternal overall verbal responsiveness seemed to imply aspects of verbal style only modestly. Child contributions that may account for relationships between maternal interaction and child linguistic development were also considered. The results are discussed with reference to maternal interactional sensitivity.