Research has shown a link between the acquisition of numerical concepts and language, but exactly how linguistic input matters for numerical development remains unclear. Here, we examine both symbolic (number word knowledge) and non-symbolic (numerical discrimination) numerical abilities in a population in which access to language is limited early…

Spoken language outcomes after cochlear implantation are highly variable. Some variance can be attributed to individual characteristics. Research with typically hearing children suggests that the amount of language directed to children may also play a role. However, several moderating factors may complicate the association between language input…

Recent evidence suggests that deaf children with CIs exposed to nonnative sign language from hearing parents can attain age-appropriate vocabularies in both sign and spoken language. It remains to be explored whether deaf children with CIs who are exposed to early nonnative sign language, but only up to implantation, also benefit from this input…

This study examines the role of receptive vocabulary knowledge on outcomes of the TOEFL reading comprehension task. Participants included 18 native speakers of Spanish learning English as a foreign language and 17 native speakers of English ranging in age from 19-25 years. Lexical stimuli were presented auditorily and were divided into…

This study investigated the extent to which parental language input to children with hearing loss (HL) prior to cochlear implant (CI) differs from input to children with typical hearing (TH). A 20-min parent-child interaction sample was collected for 13 parent-child dyads in the HL group and 17 dyads in the TH group during free play. Ten minutes…

Purpose: Child phonologists have long been interested in how tightly speech input constrains the speech production capacities of young children, and the question acquires clinical significance when children with hearing loss are considered. Children with sensorineural hearing loss often show differences in the spectral and temporal structures of…

While most studies that explored children's incidental literacy acquisition focused on input from written text, this quantitative-qualitative study investigated the effects of using audio-visual input through close-captioned Aesop's Fables cartoons from PinkFong and Task-Induced Involvement (n=6 eight-year old pupils). Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test…

A battery of standardized language tests and control measures was administered to three groups of at-risk language learners -- internationally adopted children, deaf children with cochlear implants, and children with specific language impairment -- and to groups of second-language learners and typically developing monolingual children. All…

Developmental psychology plays a central role in shaping evidence-based best practices for prelingually deaf children. The Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis (Conway et al., 2009) asserts that a lack of auditory stimulation in deaf children leads to impoverished implicit sequence learning abilities, measured via an artificial grammar learning (AGL)…

Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) children need to master at least one language (spoken or signed) to reach their full potential. Providing access to a natural sign language supports this goal. Despite evidence that natural sign languages are beneficial to DHH children, many researchers and practitioners advise families to focus exclusively on spoken…

Pierce "et al." (2017) have proposed that variations in the timing, quality and quantity of language input during the earliest stages of development are related to variations in the development of phonological working memory and, in turn, to later language learning outcomes. To examine this hypothesis, three groups of children who are…

The ability to understand and convey one's thoughts and emotions through spoken language is important for successful communication. The prosody of spoken language, including the intonation, rhythm, and stress present in speech, is important for language acquisition, language comprehension, and communication (Mehler et al., 1988; Nazzi, Bertoncini,…