Purpose: Syntax provides critical support for both academic success and linguistic growth, yet it has not been a focus of language research in school-age African American children. This study examines complex syntax performance of African American children in second through fifth grades. Method: The current study explores the syntactic…

Purpose: Speech sound disorder (SSD) in conjunction with a language disorder has been associated with poor literacy acquisition; however, no study has evaluated whether articulation, phonological, or sequencing skills are differentially related to reading skills. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between speech error types at ages…

Purpose: Overt marking of "BE" in nonmainstream adult dialects of English is influenced by a number of linguistic constraints, including the structure's person, number, tense, contractibility, and grammatical function. In the current study, the authors examined the effects of these constraints on overt marking of "BE" in…

To become successful communicators, children must be sensitive to the clarity/ambiguity of language. Significant gains in children's ability to detect communicative ambiguity occur during the early school-age years. However, little is known about the cognitive abilities that support this development. Relations between cognitive flexibility and…

Researchers have suggested that as children's language skill develops in early childhood, it comes to help children regulate their emotions (Cole, Armstrong, & Pemberton, 2010; Kopp, 1989), but the pathways by which this occurs have not been studied empirically. In a longitudinal study of 120 children from 18 to 48 months of age, associations…

Purpose: In this study, the authors aimed to examine the long-term effects of prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE) on the language development of 12-year-old children using a prospective design, controlling for confounding prenatal drug exposure and environmental factors. Method: Children who were exposed to cocaine in utero (PCE; "n" = 183)…

Examined test-retest reliability for Test of Language Development-2: Primary (TOLD-2 P) and Intermediate (TOLD-2 I). Findings from 60 children revealed that, with few exceptions, both tests had satisfactory reliability over 2-week interval. Less satisfactory reliability was found for TOLD-2 P Semantics Composite (ages 4, 6 ,and 8); Phonology…

Comparison of the Picture Vocabulary subtest of the Test of Language Development--Primary (TOLD-P-PV) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test--Revised (PPVT-R) with first- through third-graders (N=48) revealed a strong correlation between the two receptive vocabulary measures. (CB)

Twenty-seven American Indian children (ages 4-12), 10 with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and 17 normally developing control subjects, were administered the Test of Language Development. FAS children exhibited depressed performance on most subtests. The older FAS children presented syntactic deficits whereas the younger FAS subjects presented more…