Purpose: Although autistic perspectives are paramount for evidence-based practice and the neurodiversity paradigm, they are often underrepresented in research and have only recently started to get attention from professionals in different fields, including communication sciences and disorders (CSD) and foreign language teaching (FLT). To alleviate…

Grammar is an important goal area for children with language impairment. The current article considers the use of General Language Performance Measures (GLPMs) to assess outcomes for this basic goal area and for 3 intermediate grammar goals that contribute to children's developing ability to construct increasingly longer and more complex…

Language sample analysis (LSA) has been called the "gold standard" for clinical language assessment with children learning more than one language. The research literature discussing this clinical tool with bilingual children has grown substantially in recent years. This article reviews and synthesizes the literature on LSA in order to…

This article reviews the important role of statistical learning for language and reading development. Although statistical learning--the unconscious encoding of patterns in language input--has become widely known as a force in infants' early interpretation of speech, the role of this kind of learning for language and reading comprehension in…

Purpose: Although there is an increasing body of evidence for the important role morphological awareness plays in written language development, there is little consensus on a fully specified definition of this linguistic awareness ability. Without agreement on a definition, several problems arise, at least one of which impacts researchers' and…

Various arguments are reviewed about the claim that language development is critically connected to the development of theory of mind. The different theories of how language could help in this process of development are explored. A brief account is provided of the controversy over the capacities of infants to read others' false beliefs. Then the…

This review article starts with an overview of changing education paradigms and the literature on cognitive and linguistic relationships in imaginative play related to comprehension of oral and written texts. Strategies for developing the cognitive and linguistic foundations for text comprehension through play are described. A review of current…

This article reviews research that has investigated the role of verbal working memory (VWM) in sentence comprehension in both typical and atypical developmental populations. Two theoretical approaches that specify different roles for VWM in sentence comprehension are considered: (i) capacity-limit approaches, which treat VWM as a theoretical…

Recent work has demonstrated the importance of derivational morphology to later language development and has led to a consensus that derivation is a lexical process. In this review, derivational morphology is discussed in terms of lexical representation models from both linguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives. Input characteristics, including…

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a foundational skill related to understanding the thoughts, beliefs, and desires of oneself and others. There are child factors that play an important role in the development of ToM (e.g., language and vocabulary) as well as environmental factors (e.g., conversations among family members and socioeconomic status). In this…

Working with students who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) can raise questions about whether language and literacy delays and difficulties are related directly to late and limited access to spoken language, to co-occurring language learning disabilities (LLD), or to both. A new Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills, which incorporates…

Prior research has shown that vocabulary instruction can enhance the comprehension of passages when instruction includes definitional and contextual information, provides multiple instructional encounters with the words, and requires learners to engage actively in processing of word meanings (M. F. Graves, 1986; S. A. Stahl & M. M. Fairbanks,…

This article highlights the importance of peer interactions for pre-school-aged children's social and language development and demonstrates the need for professional development in this area. Learning Language and Loving It[TM]--The Hanen Program[R] for Early Childhood Educators and Preschool Teachers is a professional development program that is…

This article uses an analysis of speech to qualitatively examine the relationship between a blind child and his environment, his use of semiotic signs, and his identity development. A brief overview of development in blind children is followed by a case study. The theoretical construct of this article, which is interactionism, is infused into the…

Examines the relationship and predictive power of the Early Language Milestone Scale-2 (ELM-2)and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II (BSID-II). Both scales were administered to 90 infants at risk for developmental delay due to prematurity and low birth weight. Results of the ELM-2 correlated with BSID-II scores of infants 12 months of age.…