Purpose: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have well-documented verb learning difficulties. In this study, we asked whether the inclusion of retrieval practice during the learning period would facilitate these children's verb learning relative to a similar procedure that provided no retrieval opportunities. Method: Eleven…

This study employed a paired priming paradigm to ask whether input features influence a child's propensity to use non-nominative versus nominative case in subject position, and to use non-nominative forms even when verbs are marked for agreement. Thirty English-speaking children (ages 2;6 to 3;7) heard sentences with pronouns that had…

Purpose: Retrieval practice has been found to be a powerful strategy to enhance long-term retention of new information; however, the utility of retrieval practice when teaching young children new words is largely unknown, and even less is known for young children with language impairments. The current study examined the effect of 2 different…

Delayed appearance of early language milestones can be one of the first signs of a developmental disorder. In this study, we investigated how well late acquisition of language milestones predicted an outcome of specific language impairment (SLI). The sample included 150 children (76 SLI), aged 4 to 7 years old. Milestone information was collected…

Results of the study involving 13 language-impaired children (two to three years old) indicated that unsolicited imitations play comparable facilitative roles in the lexical acquisition of normal and language-impaired children. (Author/CL)

Although both 14 language impaired and 14 normal young children showed greater comprehension and production of words referring to objects than to actions, this tendency was not as marked for the language impaired Ss. (CL)

The study found that 8 language-impaired 3-year-old children were less likely than 10 normally developing children to apply unusual sound changes to words with the potential for homonymy, suggesting they are limited in their ability to capitalize on the phonetic regularities of language. (Author/DB)

Examined input frequency, sentence position, and duration as contributing factors to grammatical inflections. In parents' conversations with and stories aimed at young children, noun plural inflections were more frequent than third singular verb inflections, especially in sentence-final position. Analysis of four mothers' speech when reading…

A study suggesting semantic rather than syntactic early language acquisition by children. (CH)

The relation between sensorimotor attainments and linguistic development in children using referential speech at the single- and two-word utterance levels was examined in 20 normal and 8 language-handicapped young children. (Author)

Reports three studies concerning individual differences in children's use of consonants during early phonological development. The findings indicate that these differences fall within a predictable range, that the linguistic environment cannot account for several of them, and that they are partly due to variations in the choice of lexical items.…

Examination of the spontaneous speech of 10 English-speaking children (ages 3 to 5) with specific language impairment revealed evidence of the functional categories of determiner, inflection, and complementizer. However, compared to younger children with comparable mean utterance lengths, these children showed lower percentages of use of many…

Examines the communicative functions served by the lexical usage of normal and language impaired children whose speech was limited to single word utterances. (EKN)

The study found that eight specifically language-impaired children (ages four and five) were more limited than eight normally developing children (ages two and three, matched for mean utterance length) in the use of both subject case marking and verb morphology. A relationship between the two types of usage was found in both groups of children.…

The purpose of this study was to explore whether 13 children with specific language impairment (SLI; ages 5;1-8;0 [years;months]) were as proficient as typically developing age- and vocabulary-matched children in the production of finite and nonfinite complement clauses. Preschool children with SLI have marked difficulties with verb-related…