This document reviews a number of recent studies written in French that investigate the nature of communication between 2-year-old infants and others. The review includes three parts. The first part focuses on studies aiming to constitute a behavioral catalog of the child. Characteristically, these studies offer a posteriori interpretations of relationships between language usage and other forms of behavior and cannot explicate the active role of adult and child in their mutual control of interaction. The second part reviews studies made to delineate sequential dependencies between the child's conduct and that of interlocutors. These studies have in common the search for a minimal element of analysis in explorations of the bidirectional nature of exchanges and their construction in time. The third section reports terminological changes made since the 1970s in research in human communication. Noted are increased specificity about what may be studied as communication involving infants and increased awareness that, since communicative interactions play a role in shaping the psychological organization of the child, the study of communication is essential. (RH)