Using a conversation analytical, social interactionist approach to cognition, Wootton examines the requests made by his daughter between 18 and 36 months of age in interaction with her parents. He analyzes in detail “distressing events” or seemingly irrational temper tantrums to develop a theory of cognitive development based on the sequentiality of conversational interaction. By correlating her use of imperatives and, later, of more polite forms of requests, Wootton is able to show how the child identifies and draws on expectations of shared understanding, established through local interactional sequences of conversation, to develop her sense of cognitive relevance and moral rectitude. The intensity of the child's distress at seeing her expectations flouted leads Wootton to claim that the nature of these understandings is local, public, and moral: The child's cultural awareness is fashioned and critically conditioned precisely by those forms of sequential and interactional organization she begins to come to grips with at about the age of 2.