new data set on welfare Mothers

[Brian MacWhinney]

I am happy to announce the addition to CHILDES of a new data set of
conversations between welfare mothers and their children.  The data were
contributed by Kathryn Barnard and Colleen Morisset.  They are to be found
in morisset.sit and morisset.zip on the server.

These data come from a three-site study of language in children of welfare
mothers conducted the late 1980s. The sites were Seattle, Topeka, and UCLA.
The 68 transcripts from the Seattle site used the prohibition task. The 79
transcripts from the Topeka site used snack sessions. In both of these
sites, the children were all about 2;6 of age. For the Topeka data, the
language sample is said to begin when the Examiner leaves the room (usually
at the sound of the door closing) after she has finished setting up the
snack. It ends when the Examiner reenters after about six minutes. In the
UCLA sample, there are 116 children ranging in age from about 2;11 to 3;6.

Articles that have made use of these data include:

Kelly, J. F., Morisset, C. E., Barnard, K. E., Hammond, M. A., & al., e.
(1996). The influence of early mother-child interaction on preschool
cognitive/linguistic outcomes in a high-social-risk group. Infant Mental
Health Journal, Health-Journal.

Morisset, C. (1991). Environmental influences on language development of
high social-risk toddlers. University of Washington Ph.D thesis.

Morisset, C. E., Barnard, K. E., & Booth, C. L. (1995). Toddlers' language
development:  Sex differences within social risk. Developmental Psychology,
31(5), 851-865.

Morisset, C. E., Barnard, K. E., Greenberg, M. T., Booth, C. L., & Spieker,
S. J. (1990). Environmental influence on early language development: The
context of social risk. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 127-149.