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Rebecca E. Winter; Heidrun Stoeger; Sebastian P. Suggate – First Language, 2024
A growing body of research suggests that fine motor skills (FMS) are associated with language development. In this study, we examined 76 children aged 3-6 years assessing the link between language and FMS. Specific measures included receptive and expressive vocabulary, oral narrative skills, and various fine motor tasks. Hierarchical linear…
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Preschool Children, Kindergarten, Early Childhood Education
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Listanti, Andrea; Torregrossa, Jacopo – First Language, 2023
Heritage language (HL) speakers seem to diverge from monolingual speakers in the acquisition of syntax-discourse interface phenomena. However, most of the studies reporting this finding do not make any distinction between different types of syntax-discourse interface structures. Therefore, it is an open question whether these structures are…
Descriptors: Italian, Language Acquisition, Verbs, Narration
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Penke, Martina; Wimmer, Eva – First Language, 2020
In individuals with Down syndrome (DS) deficits in verbal short-term memory (VSTM) and deficits in sentence comprehension co-occur, suggesting that deficits in VSTM might be causal for the deficits in sentence comprehension. The present study aims to explore the presumed relationship between VSTM and sentence comprehension in individuals with DS…
Descriptors: Sentences, Language Processing, German, Native Language
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Szagun, Gisela; Schramm, Satyam A. – First Language, 2019
This study examines the role of the lexicon and grammatical structure building in early grammar. Parent-report data in CDI format from a sample of 1151 German-speaking children between 1;6 and 2;6 and longitudinal spontaneous speech data from 22 children between 1;8 and 2;5 were used. Regression analysis of the parent-report data indicates that…
Descriptors: Child Language, German, Toddlers, Grammar
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Bittner, Dagmar; Bartz, Damaris – First Language, 2018
Studies on L1- and L2-acquisition of German and Dutch have shown that the particles "too/also" and "again" hamper the realization of finiteness while the particle "not" promotes it. In this study the authors ask whether adversative "but" also affects the realization of finiteness. By applying a…
Descriptors: German, Phrase Structure, Language Acquisition, Syntax
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Adani, Flavia; Stegenwallner-Schütz, Maja; Haendler, Yair; Zukowski, Andrea – First Language, 2016
We elicited the production of various types of relative clauses in a group of German-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing controls in order to test the movement optionality account of grammatical difficulty in SLI. The results show that German-speaking children with SLI are impaired in relative clause…
Descriptors: German, Language Impairments, Language Acquisition, Expressive Language
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Vaahtoranta, Enni; Suggate, Sebastian; Jachmann, Cornelia; Lenhart, Jan; Lenhard, Wolfgang – First Language, 2018
Shared reading represents an established practice to foster preschool vocabulary development, particularly when coupled with explicit instruction in word meanings. However, a question remains as to whether explicit word definitions detract from story delivery and hence language learning. Accordingly, this study compared explicit versus…
Descriptors: Vocabulary Development, Story Telling, Language Acquisition, Preschool Children
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Kehoe, Margaret M. – First Language, 2015
This study examined lexical-phonological interactions in the first 50 words of a group of monolingual German- and Spanish-speaking children and bilingual German--Spanish children. The phonological characteristics of the earliest target word forms and output patterns of these children were analyzed to determine whether bilingual children select…
Descriptors: Phonology, Bilingualism, Spanish Speaking, German
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Poulain, Tanja; Brauer, Jens – First Language, 2018
This study explores the developmental change of mother-child interactions in order to investigate which aspects of maternal behavior affect children's speech production. To this end, the interactions between 79 German-speaking mothers and their two- or five-year-old children were observed at two time points (12 months apart) and in two interactive…
Descriptors: Mothers, Parent Role, Parent Child Relationship, Predictor Variables
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Sauerland, Uli; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.; Guasti, Maria Teresa; Andelkovic, Darinka; Argus, Reili; Armon-Lotem, Sharon; Arosio, Fabrizio; Avram, Larisa; Costa, João; Dabašinskiene, Ineta; de López, Kristine; Gatt, Daniela; Grech, Helen; Haman, Ewa; van Hout, Angeliek; Hrzica, Gordana; Kainhofer, Judith; Kamandulyte-Merfeldiene, Laura; Kunnari, Sari; Kovacevic, Melita; Kuvac Kraljevic, Jelena; Lipowska, Katarzyna; Mejias, Sandrine; Popovic, Maša; Ruzaite, Jurate; Savic, Maja; Sevcenco, Anca; Varlokosta, Spyridoula; Varnava, Marina; Yatsushiro, Kazuko – First Language, 2016
The comprehension of constituent questions is an important topic for language acquisition research and for applications in the diagnosis of language impairment. This article presents the results of a study investigating the comprehension of different types of questions by 5-year-old, typically developing children across 19 European countries, 18…
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Questioning Techniques, Preschool Children, Language Acquisition
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Laing, Catherine E. – First Language, 2014
This article analyses longitudinal diary data from one infant acquiring German to seek a better understanding of the role of onomatopoeia in early language development. Onomatopoeic words (OWs) are traced over time in relation to their corresponding conventional forms (CWs), and an analysis of their phonological transitions is considered in…
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Longitudinal Studies, Diaries, Language Acquisition
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Niklas, Frank; Schneider, Wolfgang – First Language, 2017
Children develop linguistic competencies during interactions with more knowledgeable others. Consequently, one way to support this development is by enhancing the home literacy environment (HLE) in which children live. In this study a non-intensive intervention procedure was developed to improve HLE and linguistic competencies of 125 German…
Descriptors: Intervention, Family Environment, Family Literacy, Vocabulary Development
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Suggate, Sebastian P.; Lenhard, Wolfgang; Neudecker, Elisabeth; Schneider, Wolfgang – First Language, 2013
Both reading and language experiences contribute to vocabulary development, but questions remain as to what effect each has and when. This article investigates the effects that reading, telling and sharing a story have on vocabulary acquisition. Children (N = 37) were told nine stories in a randomized, single-blind and counterbalanced 2 × 3 mixed…
Descriptors: Incidental Learning, Vocabulary Development, Elementary School Students, Language Tests