African American mothers' views of their infants' language development andlanguage-learning environment

The purpose of this investigation was to develop an understanding of how Af rican American mothers living in an urban setting in the South (a) viewed t heir children's language development and (b) structured their children's la nguage-learning environment in general. Semi-structured interviews were con ducted with six African American mothers of low socioeconomic status (SES) and six African American mothers of middle SES as part of a larger study. T hree themes emerged from the analysis of the data: (a) how children learn t o talk, (b) perceptions of children's language development, and (c) structu ring children's experiences. Results revealed some similarities between the views of mothers of low and middle SES, with individual variations occurri ng within each of the groups.