An exploratory study probed the extent to which children rely on category membership to guide their inferences. A total of 60 children, 4 years of age, were shown 20 sets of pictures of various animals, plants, and minerals. Each set consisted of representations of three objects having two salient features: perceptual similarity/dissimilarity and…

Results from these two studies show that fast mapping--gaining information about a word from how it is used in a sentence, what words it is contrasted with, and other factors--can be used successfully by children two to four years old to form quick and rough hypotheses about the meaning of a word. (PCB)

Investigates whether patient animacy affected the acquisition of the passive construction of syntax of 32 children aged two-five years. Results indicate that children who were taught the passive with animate patients produced more passives in the teaching phase than did comparable children who received inanimate patients. (RJC)

Discrimination and phonetic identification abilities of children (ages 5-6) with language impairments were compared to those of normally developing 4-year-olds and previous findings on children and adults. Results support hypotheses suggesting disorders in the phonological component of working memory in children with language impairments and the…

This document presents a study of natural language understanding of computer programs. In the study, the performance of IRUS, a natural language query system designed to interface with a database, was compared with the performance of preschool and early elementary school children in answering questions about a specific database. Questions used in…

Reports three experiments which examined preschool, first-grade, and third-grade children's understanding of metaphorical language. Subjects acted out short stories which ended in metaphorical sentences by using toys. Predictability of the story endings and the complexity of the metaphorical sentences are found to affect metaphor comprehension.…

Investigates the development of awareness of conversational principles in preschool, first-, and third-grade children by presenting them with short stories ending with a verbal statement by a story character. Results suggest that children's understanding of conversational principles improves considerably between preschool and first grade.…

Understanding a text requires more than the ability to read individual words: it depends greatly on vocabulary knowledge. This important book brings together leading literacy scholars to synthesize cutting-edge research on vocabulary development and its connections to reading comprehension. The volume also reviews an array of approaches to…