The researchers measured toddlers' preferences for language, prosody, and imagery via the participants' responses to either grammatical or ungrammatical sentences read by the tester. The study had a 2 (grammatical versus ungrammatical sentence) X 2 (upbeat versus monotone voice) X 2 (picture versus no picture) mixed-subjects design. Ability to distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences was not better than chance. Toddlers performed better with pictures than without pictures, indicating that pictures are important in toddlers' ability to distinguish grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. However, tone of voice had no effect on toddlers' performance, contrary to predictions. We discuss implications for teaching methods for language acquisition in toddlers.

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