Background: The implicit learning deficit hypothesis claims that impaired implicit learning underlies deficits in social-communicative abilities associated with developmental language disorder (DLD). However, previous research testing this hypothesis revealed inconsistent results and largely used process-impure sequential learning tasks. Aims:…

This article discusses findings from the first 10 years of the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment (LOCHI) Study, which includes more than 450 deaf and hard of hearing Australian children whose hearing losses were identified variously through newborn hearing screening or later paths to confirmation and intervention.

Research Findings: The present study investigates both the proximal processes and contextual influences on children's oral language development in preschool. We examine whether teacher language practices vary across activity settings and program type, which teacher language practices predict children's oral language skills, and potential…

Toddlerhood is marked by advances in several lexico-semantic skills, including improvements in the size and structure of the lexicon and increased efficiency in lexical processing. This project seeks to delineate how early changes in vocabulary size and vocabulary structure support lexical processing (Experiment 1), and how these three skills…

There has been limited research on identifying and understanding co-occurring challenges associated with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). This is an exploratory study to examine the sensory profile of school-age children with DLD, and to investigate possible relationships between sensory profiles and language skills. Chart information was…

Introduction: The current study examined the extent to which static and dynamic measures of vocabulary and word learning predicted response and identified poor responders to a vocabulary intervention. Methods: Participants were 46 preschool children in classrooms randomly assigned to complete the Story Friends intervention in two…

Purpose: Parent engagement is a critical component of optimizing services for young children with disabilities, including those with language disorders. Without training, however, many parents may lack the knowledge and skills to effectively facilitate their children's language development during the essential early childhood years. The Parents…

A retrospective review of initial early intervention and early childhood special education (EI/ECSE) evaluation reports was completed to identify practices specific to the evaluation of Latinx children's communication development. A records abstraction approach employed entailed a random selection of 294 EI/ECSE evaluation reports completed in…

Introduction: Children born prematurely often score lower on standardized tests of language in early childhood. Less is known about longer term outcomes. This investigation considered language outcomes in pre-adolescent children born very preterm/very low birthweight, as assessed by both standardized test scores and language sample measures, and…

A cluster randomized design was used to investigate the effects of the "Story Friends" vocabulary curriculum on learning of 84 preschoolers in 24 classrooms who were at risk for language difficulties. Children in the treatment condition received explicit vocabulary instruction of 36 words during small-group storybook listening centers…

Executive function (EF), a set of neurocognitive processes, is central to students' emotional and behavioral well-being. Despite students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) being at risk for negative long-term outcomes, there is a paucity of EF research with students at risk for EBD in early elementary school, an important…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether families of children with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) are organized similarly to those of typically developing, typically hearing (TH) children and whether the dimensions of family dynamics and environment are related to spoken language development similarly in children with and without…

A cluster randomized design was used to investigate effects of the Story Friends vocabulary curriculum on learning of 84 preschoolers in 24 classrooms who were at risk for language difficulties. Children in the treatment condition received explicit vocabulary instruction of 36 words during small-group storybook listening centers with extended…

Purpose: Narrative skill represents a higher-level linguistic skill that shows incremental development in the preschool years. During these years, there are considerable individual differences in this skill, with some children being highly skilled narrators (i.e., precocious) relative to peers of their age. In this study, we explored the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how well a cumulative risk approach, based on empirically supported predictive factors, predicts whether a young child who stutters is likely to develop persistent developmental stuttering. In a cumulative risk approach, the number of predictive factors indicating a child is at risk to develop…