Verb use and the production of verb argument structure in the written texts of children in elementary school is a key stepping stone towards academic writing success that has remained relatively unexplored and is a notable gap in our understanding of writing development. To evaluate the role of verbs in the written narrative texts of children, we…

This article summarizes the evidence as regards the effectiveness of therapy for grammar for school-aged children with language impairments. I first review studies focusing on specific areas of grammar (both expressive and receptive targets) and then studies aiming to improve language more generally, several of which focus more on the…

This paper explores the concurrent and predictive validity of the long and short forms of the Galician version of the MacArthur-Bates CDI (IDHC). Forty-two Galician-speaking children were longitudinally evaluated at age 1 ; 6, 2 ; 0 and 4 ; 0. On the first two occasions, the subjects' vocabulary and grammar skills were assessed through the IDHC.…

Purpose: To propose that the diagnostic category of "expressive language disorder" as distinct from a disorder of both expressive and receptive language might not be accurate. Method: Evidence that casts doubt on a pure form of this disorder is reviewed from several sources, including the literature on genetic findings, theories of language…

This paper assesses the expressive spoken grammar skills of young deaf children using cochlear implants who are beginning formal education, compares it with that achieved by normally hearing children and considers possible implications for educational management. Spoken language grammar was assessed, three years after implantation, in 45 children…

After hemispherectomy (removal or disconnection of an entire cerebral hemisphere) in childhood for treatment of intractable epilepsy, gross speech and language functions are often rescued. Whether more complex functions, such as syntactic processing, are selectively impaired, remains controversial. Here we present a cross-sectional study of…

Results of a seven-week sentence stimulation treatment on sentence production in an aphasic adult female with agrammatism indicated that treatment influenced description of test picture sets and that some generalization to other picture sets occurred. (Author/DB)

Children with Down syndrome often display speech-comprehensibility and grammatical deficits beyond what would be predicted based upon general mental age. Historically, speech-comprehensibility has often been treated using traditional articulation therapy and oral-motor training so there may be little or no coordination of grammatical and…

The primary objective was to compare the grammatical output of children with language disorders on different tasks. Sixty-five children with language disorders, aged six to eleven, completed the syntactic formulation (elicitation) and narrative subtests from the Assessment of Comprehension and Expression 6-11 (Adams et al. 2001). Grammatical…

This article compared the language profiles of adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) and children with specific language impairment matched for nonverbal cognitive ability, and investigated whether similar relationships could be established between language measures and other capacities in both groups. Language profiles were very similar: Expressive…

This article describes the EpiSLI diagnostic system for identifying specific language impairment in kindergarten children for the purpose of epidemiological research. The system employs five composite scores representing norm-referenced performance in three domains of language (vocabulary, grammar, and narration) and two modalities (comprehension…

This article examines evidence provided by quantitative and qualitative measurement of second language (L2) proficiency by elementary-level learners of French, following participation in a school foreign exchange visit. Based on a study consisting of a controlled analysis of test results from 68 pupils studying French at three secondary schools in…

Humor is an excellent teaching tool because, in addition to preventing classroom boredom and monotony, it introduces lateral aspects of language such as irony, sarcasm, mockery, elision, ellipsis, and euphemism. Humor in language can be approached interactively or structurally through a variety of activities. It can be used to expand vocabulary,…