Summary. Luria maintains that one of the roles of speech in human development is to regulate behaviour, and that in the course of development this function passes through certain sequential stages that may be identified. The present investigation replicates Luria's study and is further concerned with the relationship between psycholinguistic abilities as measured by the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities and the regulation of behaviour. The results show that Australian children pass through similar stages to Russian children in the development of the regulatory role of speech. In addition, these stages are more closely related to psycholinguistic development as measured by the 1TPA, than to chronological age as Luria suggests.