People use different communication patterns based on the context and who they are addressing. These differences, known as linguistic register, are common across human speech and recognized early in development. Here, we examine 4-11-year-old American children's (N = 227) ability to use linguistic registers to determine a speaker's addressee as…

This study examines how a high-pressure family language policy (FLP) is implemented in South Korea, focusing on the experiences of a family with a preschool-aged child, Jay. The phenomenon of "English fever," which has led to the widespread adoption of intensive early childhood English education, has contributed to the increasing…

This report examines the critical role of home visitors in supporting dual language development among Latino children, who represent a growing share of the U.S. population. Through surveys and interviews with home visitors, UnidosUS identified gaps in training and resources needed to effectively serve culturally and linguistically diverse…

The current study investigated whether age-related changes in the conceptualization of social groups influences interpretation of the pronoun we. Sixty-four 2- and 4-year-olds (N = 29 female, 50 White-identifying) viewed scenarios in which it was ambiguous how many puppets performed an activity together. When asked who performed the activity, a…

This study explored whether the directionality of the relation between majority language and various facets of socioemotional development (three to 5 years old) differs between children with different language backgrounds. 12,951 children (49% girls; 85% White, 6% Pakistani and Bangladeshi, 3% Black, 3% Mix, 2% Indian) from the British Millennium…

Purpose: Toddlers with Down syndrome (DS) showcase comparable or higher rates of gestures than chronological age-- and language-matched toddlers without DS. Little is known about how gesture use in toddlers with DS relates to multiple domains of development, including motor, pragmatics, language, and visual reception (VR) skills. Unexplored is…

In this study, we examine how mobility and on-going changes in sociocultural contexts impact family language policy (FLP) in the UK. Using a questionnaire and involving 470 transnational families across the UK, our study provides a descriptive analysis of different family language practices in England and establishes how attitudes influence the…

This study aims to compare the effects of "questioning with minimal evaluation" (PE) and "prompt-evaluate-expand-repeat" (PEER) used in dialogic reading (DR) on children's language development. This study included 119 typically developing (TD) and 107 Chinese children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by using a pre- and…

Given their significance in daily life and frequent inclusion in clinical and educational assessments, children's narrative abilities merit investigation. The present study examines the narratives of children acquiring an additional language, adding to the more abundant studies of monolingual children. Sixty kindergartners (mean age 68 months)…

Prediction error plays a pivotal role in theories of learning, including theories of language acquisition and use. Researchers have investigated whether and under which conditions children, like adults, use prediction to facilitate language comprehension at different levels of linguistic representation. However, many aspects of the reciprocal…

The present study examined the production of inalienable possession with body parts in Spanish among 20 school-age children of Mexican-born parents born and raised in the United States. The results were compared to those of 20 first-generation immigrant parents (main input providers), 27 Spanish-dominant children of similar age, and 12 Spanish…

Purpose: Earlier work has established developmental benchmarks for intelligibility and articulation rate, but the intersection of these two variables, especially within individual children, has received limited attention. This study examines the interaction between intelligibility and speaking rate in typically developing children between the ages…

Bilingual children, the majority of whom are Spanish-English learners, now constitute over a third of the preschool population in the United States (Migration Policy Institute, 2021). Bilingual children and their families face multiple barriers to high-quality early childhood education, which are largely due to the underutilization of culturally…

Children's understanding of passives of certain mental state predicates appears to lag behind passives of so-called actional predicates, an asymmetry that has posed a major empirical challenge for theories of passive acquisition. This paper argues against the dominant view in the literature that treats the predicate-based asymmetry as…

Many parents express concerns for their children's multilingual development, yet little is known about the nature and strength of these concerns - especially among parents in multilingual societies. This pre-registered, questionnaire-based study addresses this gap by examining the concerns of 821 Quebec-based parents raising infants and toddlers…