This paper is an attempt to use the language development strategy of one child from 15 to 25 months to illustrate the importance of the nonword aspects of communicative development on the develop ment of later language. The child studied here did not show an increase in MLU from 15 to 22 months but within a three-month period after 22 months jumped from 1.2 to 3.0 MLU. This spurt is explain in terms of the other aspects of communication the child was acquiring over the time frame, including social games, intonation, and syntax markers. The strategy of this child was described as a social interactive one which focused on the structural features of the dialogue, rather than on words.
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