The paper reviews research on the pragmatic language skills of language impaired and learning disabled students. Discourse skills are analyzed in terms of communicative intentions, presupposition, social organization of discourse, and context. Narrative skills are examined according to narrative structure, scripts, text cohesion, and audience…

Action word and object word productions of 12 language-normal and language-impaired young children were examined. Results revealed that percentage of consonants produced correctly within the spontaneous speech of both groups was higher for object words. The production advantage for object words was maintained even when certain input factors were…

Fourteen mothers of language delayed two- to five-year-old children provided shorter utterances, fewer questions, more directions, and fewer acceptance utterances than 14 mothers of nondelayed children in free play and structured situations. (CL)

Mothers' recasts and other contingent replies to their children's utterances were examined in 2 groups of 14 mother-child dyads--either with language-impaired or non-language-impaired children. Mothers' overall use of recasts was highly similar for the 2 groups. (Author/DB)

The stressing patterns of five preschool language-impaired children were investigated. Analysis of two-word utterances in language samples found that three subjects tended to stress words based on their position in the utterance; one child stressed words based on informativeness; and one of the subjects' preferences was unclear. (JDD)

Results were that the children's mean length of utterance scores were better for the home sample, although there was no difference between their developmental sentence scores for the home sample and the clinic sample. (Author/SBH)

Examines the similarities between British Sign Language and West Indian Creole, both in their social development and structural similarity. Pertinent educational implications are discussed. (EKN)

Teachers should know language structure when dealing with the diagnosis of pupils' language difficulties. Simple solutions, such as proofreading his/her work, underlining, and transcribing paragraph dictation may be suggested for students once the teacher grasps the sound/symbol/syllable structure of English. (CL)

A study examined the manner in which 10 specifically language-impaired children and their linguistically normal chronological age-matched peers repaired overlapping speech. Conversational samples from each student were elicited by an adult examiner. (26 references) (Author/CB)

The study compared the deviant, repetitive language of 33 males (9 with Down syndrome, 12 with fragile X syndrome, and 12 with autism). Results indicated that males with fragile X syndrome manifest deviant, repetitive language that is distinct from males with either Down syndrome or autism. (DB)

Three instructional strategies for teaching nonstandard English speakers are discussed. It is explained that language programs which fail to take into account the linguistic characteristics of native Indian learners may be one of the reasons Indian students often perform poorly on language related school tasks. (Author/PHR)

The study identified communicative patterns of preschool children (N=11) with handicaps (Down's Syndrome, specific language impairments, and autism). Down's Syndrome children were like normal children of the same language stage on all parameters whereas autistic children scored outside the normal range on all but one parameter. (Author/DB)

This meta-analysis of 33 studies compared the pragmatic language skills of 825 students (ages 3-12) having language and/or learning disabilities with the skills of nondisabled peers. The students with disabilities demonstrated consistent and pervasive pragmatic deficits in conversation, which were more attributable to underlying language deficits…

This article reviews recent research on phonological development and characteristics associated with different forms of delay. Language-delayed students are considered categorizable at 24 months as either "late talkers" with no major deviations from patterns of normal acquisition or disordered students whose developmental patterns are markedly…

Eight preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 30 nonimpaired children were selected on the basis of specified mean length of utterance (MLU) ranges and compared on word class production. The high-MLU and low-MLU groups of SLI children could not be empirically differentiated based on their word class profiles, whereas the…