JO URNA L O F APPLIED DEVELO PMENTA L PSYC HO LO G Y, 18,133-l 47 (1997) ISSN 0193-3973 All rig hts o f re p ro d uc tio n in any form re se rve d . 0 1997 A b le x Pub lishing C o rpo ra tio n Mo the rs’ Re fe re ntia l C o m m unic a tio n with Pre sc ho o le rs: Effe c ts o f C hild re n’s Syntax and Mo the rs’ Be lie fs MAVIS L. DONAHUE RUTH HERZOG Universiw of Illinois at Chicago This study examined the e ffe c ts o f c hild re n’s synta c tic a b ility a nd m o the rs’ b e lie fs about child development o n m o the rs’ q ue stio ning stra te g ie s o n a re fe re ntia l c o m m unic a tio n tosk with pre te rm (N = 19) or full-term (N = 19) 4 l/2-year-olds. C hild re n’s synta c tic skills we re re la te d to the dyads’ communicative success and the frequency o f m o the rs’ que stions. Ho we ve r, m o the rs’ b e lie fs about the power of the environment to e ffe c t p o sitive developmental outcomes, a nd the ir o p tim ism a b o ut the ir c hild’s future school p e rfo rm a nc e p re d ic te d m o the rs’ q ue stio ning stra te g ie s above and beyond the effects of the c hild’s language skills. The se influe nc e s o pe ra te d sim ila rly in the p re te rm and full- te rm g ro up s. The se find ing s sug g e st tha t m o the rs’ b e lie fs a b o ut c hild d e ve lo p m e nt a re im p o rta nt va ria b le s in the study of communicative inp ut to c hild re n. The nature of linguistic input to children is of fundamental interest to theorists from a variety of perspectives on the language acquisition process. Despite more than 20 years of research, however, there remain large gaps in our understanding of what factors influence child- directed speech (Harris, 1992), particularly for children who are past the early stages of syntactic/semantic development. Children’s age and syntactic ability seem to be important predictors of many aspects of their mothers’ communicative style, a finding that has emerged in studies of young normally developing children as well as children with language disabilities, across various communicative tasks (see Cross, Nienhuys & Kirkman, 1985; Harris, 1992; Hoff-Ginsberg & Shatz, 1982; Snow, Perlmann dz Nathan, 1987, for reviews). However, one relatively neglected issue is the additional influence of a mother’s beliefs about child development on the ways in which she “fine-tunes” her discourse style (Laosa & Sigel, 1982; Sigel, 1992). The role of parental beliefs and concerns may be particularly Dire c t a ll c o rre sp o nd e nc e to: Mavis L. Donahue , C o lle g e o f Ed uc a tio n, m/c 147, 1040 W. Ha rriso n Stre e t, Unive rsity o f Illino is, C hic a g o , IL 60607 MDonahue@uic.edu.