ABSTRACT
This chapter considers several views of development and of communication that scholars brought with them as they started to study infants. These views are then used to draw a rough sketch of the developmental course of communication that will orient review of research. Specification of both the details and the lawful relations of development depend, of course, on what is being studied. Human communication is a complex process. It involves both the coordination of people and the flow of information between them. The first image emphasizes the interpersonal coordination or communion that occurs during communication episodes. In addition to coordination between people, communication involves the transmission of messages. One classic way to image this transmission is to draw a simple diagram of two communicative partners -a transmitter and a receiver- connected by a channel along which information may flow. Communication is such a multifarious process that it can be conceptualized in many different ways.
