This longitudinal study aimed to analyze characteristics of maternal speech directed to children, identifying transitions of mother-child communication settings. Four children from 13 to 24 months old and their mothers were observed longitudinally. The instances of maternal speech were classified as affirmative, negative, imperative and interrogative sentences and the mother-child communication settings were classified as attentional, conventional or symbolic. The percentage of time in attentional and symbolic settings showed a linear relation with the increase of baby's age in all mother-child dyads. Different types of maternal sentences presented diverse patterns of development across time and in the four dyads. The study offers a contribution to the literature on maternal speech and initial language development with data from a Brazilian context.
Communicational frames; maternal speech; development
