ABSTRACT
By the time children of four or five years go off to school, they know a great deal about the language they speak and about using that language to communicate with others. The process of acquiring this knowledge is, for most children, very fast, relatively painless, and seemingly automatic, so it often goes unnoticed how much time and effort the children themselves and their older caretakers invest in the process. It is the purpose of this paper to look at some of the events and experiences in infancy and early childhood which may contribute to the acquisition of linguistic and communicative skills. These events and experiences include:
Conversation-like’ interactions in early infancy.
Having one’s first communicative efforts responded to.
Receiving linguistic input of a simplified and repetitive nature.
Having adults respond to one’s signals that their communicative efforts are ineffective.
