Purpose: Many child-, hearing-, and device-related factors contribute to spoken language outcomes in children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). Recently, the family environment has been implicated as another contributing factor in language development. However, most studies on the role of families in language outcomes of children who are DHH…

Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of specific acoustic patterns on word learning and segmentation in 8- to 11-year-old children and in college students. Method: Twenty-two children (ages 8;2-11;4 [years;months]) and 36 college students listened to synthesized "utterances" in artificial languages consisting of…

Purpose: Play is a critical aspect of children's development, and researchers have long argued that symbolic deficits in play may be diagnostic of developmental disabilities. This study examined whether deficits in play emerge as a function of developmental disabilities and whether our perceptions of play are colored by differences in language and…

We compared loss and gain in communication from 1 to 2 years in children later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (n = 41), language impairment (n = 110) and in children with typical language development at 7 years (n = 831). Participants were selected from a prospective population cohort study of child language (the Early Language in…