How do responsive adult-child interactions influence early language development? How do a child's language skills develop in tandem with social-emotional development, executive function, and literacy? What are effective ways to help parents support their child's development? Uncover the answers to these questions in this fascinating book, which…

This volume explores the key developmental transitions that take place as 1- to 3-year-olds leave infancy behind and begin to develop the social and emotional knowledge, skills, and regulatory abilities of early childhood. Leading investigators examine the multiple, interacting factors that lead to socioemotional competence in this pivotal period,…

Discusses differences between authors' view of conversation and Ervin-Tripp's (included in this issue) on the similarities between adult and child conversation, planfulness in achieving topic coherence, the generalization of research results to other groups, and the socialization of conversational behavior. Also presents evidence supporting their…

Examines the nonverbal communication competence of 18- to 48-month-old Down Syndrome children. Results indicate that Downs children display strengths and weaknesses in nonverbal communication skills. Further, results suggest a deficit in expressive language is associated with a deficit in nonverbal requesting skill that had developed earlier among…

Examines the quality of conversation produced by small groups of subjects in fifth, ninth, and twelfth grades and the last year of college. Results supported Piaget's sequence of conversational development. However, topical coherence apparently is not fostered by focused turns but emerges as a generalization of the normative constraints applying…

Criticizes Dorval and Eckerman (included in this issue) for their findings' lack of generality due to the artificial nature of the conversational groups studied. Also both age changes in the ability to plan large conversational units and the functions of particular kinds of turns within these larger units are left unexplored. (CB)

Evaluation of the Kent Scoring Adaptation, which determines developmental ages in several domains based on an infant's performance on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, with 27 at-risk infants supported the concurrent validity of the cognitive, language, and, to a degree, social domains of the Kent procedure but not the fine and gross motor…

Research on the communication, language, social, and emotional development of people with autism is reviewed, concerning individuals who either are nonspeaking/limited speaking or use speech as their primary mode of linguistic communication. Research needs for longitudinal studies, investigation of early developmental patterns, and subgroup…

Explores the underlying knowledge that children have about the relationship between the structure of requests and the relative status of speakers and listeners. Shows that the three age groups (preschoolers, 5-year-olds, and 10-year-olds) could systematically differentiate the requests by means of syntactic directness or semantics. (HOD)

This study demonstrated the application of mediated learning experience to language assessment of primarily Puerto Rican and African-American children (n=50) in three Head Start classes. Results support the hypothesis that a task matching young children's socialization better differentiates between nondisabled and language-disordered children than…

This study examined the relationship among language proficiency, behavior problems, and other areas of development in 36 children (ages 36 to 40 months). A strong association was found between deficiencies in both expressive and receptive language and behavioral difficulties. Specifically, deficits in expressive language at age 2 were more…

This book consists of 31 papers focusing on aspects of child development. Mainly reports of research, papers are grouped topically into four sections dealing respectively with perceptual, language/communication, cognitive, and social development. Most of the nine papers in section 1 focus on the perceptual development of infants. Topics include…

Because many children in Bermuda receive substitute care while their mothers work, several comparative studies were made of effects of maternal and nonmaternal care on children's development. Findings of an initial investigation indicated that 2-year-old children who had been in group-center care differed unfavorably from children in other forms…

This document completes a series of four monographs that comprise a framework for describing children's development through the school years. Each monograph incorporates insights gained through research and practice. As a resource designed primarily for teachers, administrators, and curriculum designers, the document looks at the whole child as a…