Growing evidence suggests that, as a group, many internationally adopted children catch up to their peers in terms of their language development by the time they reach their school-age years. Although this appears to be particularly true for children adopted during the first few years of life, it is not true for all internationally adopted…

The second of two articles on play reviews the construct of play and its development in typically developing infants, toddlers, and young children. It considers developmental levels of play from early sensorimotor-exploratory to symbolic play involving the functional components of agent, instrument, and scheme. A developmentally based,…

Most children who are congenitally deafblind are severely delayed in their communication development and many will not achieve symbolic understanding and expression. This article discusses developmental markers cited in the research literature as predictive of or facilitative of the development of symbolism. These markers include the growth toward…

The first of two articles on play reviews the development of play in typically developing infants, toddlers, and young children, including Piaget's observations on the development of play; developmental play research following Piaget (research by Lunzer, Sinclair, Lezine, Lowe, Rosenblatt, Uzgiris and Hunt, Fenson and others, Watson and Fischer,…

This article explores the effect of augmentative and alternative communication systems on literacy acquisition by young children with severe speech and physical impairments. The possibility of a relationship between the type of graphic symbols used for communication as a preschooler and the child's early reading competency is considered. (DB)