This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the major areas of research in the field of child language acquisition. It is divided into seven parts and 19 chapters. Part I is an introduction and overview. Part II covers central issues in the study of child language acquisition, focusing on syntax, including those of innateness, maturation, and modularity and presents some of the major theoretical orientations of the field. Part III focuses on children's word learning, while Part IV deals with the acquisition of phonology and pragmatics. Both parts III and IV are concerned with children's language acquisition in areas other than syntax. Part V includes three chapters on methodological and research issues. Types of input to the child can vary not only in quality and quantity but in modality as well. Their effects, are examined in Part VI in three chapters on monolingual spoken input, the acquisition of signed rather than spoken language, and bilingual children respectively. Part VII contains 2 chapters that explore the study of language and speech disorders. One chapter focuses on a review of research on phonological disorders in children and the other focuses on the problems that constitute specific language impairment. Conains extensive references, a list of abbreviations, and author and subject indexes. (KFT)