Instructive feedback (IF) is a teaching strategy where extra information, or secondary targets, are presented in the consequence portion of an instructional interaction. Unlike teaching primary targets, no response is required from the learner after presentation. In the current investigation, the procedures from Tullis et al. (2017, "The…

Uses a quasi-experimental design to compare the social adjustment of 21 children who received the Language for Learning program with those of 24 children enrolled in a comparison school. Finds that the Language for Learning program produced statistically and educationally significant effects, including improvements in social skills and reductions…

The relationship between interactive play and the frequency of related responding to comments was investigated within the dyadic interactions between a language impaired 4-year-old and 4 normal language users. While the frequency of related responses was variable for the subject, the frequencies of related responses of normal children were…

This study incorporated a correlational methodology into an experimental context to determine the functional components of rehearsal strategies in children's discrimination learning. The subjects for this study were 120 fifth- and sixth-grade children attending two elementary schools located in middle-class areas of Ogden, Utah. According to the…

Twenty language-delayed children (age three to six) viewed a presentation incorporating object, action, attribute, and affective state words into a narrative script. In pre- and postviewing word comprehension measurements, subjects scored lower than children matched for chronological age and children matched for mean length of utterance.…

This study of 52 learning-disabled children, aged 8-13, found that direct feedback and practice improved metaphor interpretation. The approach was highly successful in teaching students to generalize concrete concepts to abstract ones. Further descriptive analyses indicated that grade and reading levels of subjects correlated with metaphor…

A study was conducted to determine whether children think about the verbal messages embedded in songs, or merely sing the words without thinking about them. A total of 48 preschool girls and boys viewed a televised vignette of the song "Frere Jacques" under varying conditions of language comprehensibility, rehearsal, and repetition. The visual…

This study focused on elementary children's shift from syntagmatic to paradigmatic word association and their consistency in responding again with the same word. Subjects, 128 children ranging from first through sixth grade in the Model Laboratory School (Richmond, Kentucky), were presented with 20 structural words and 20 lexical words. The…

This paper explores the questions of how and why children learn names for things. The acquisition of reference is set within a broader discussion of linguistic representation, which defines language as a system functioning in a three-way relationship among the individual language user, the world of experience, and the social community. It is…

Examined whether indexes of verbal imprecision could be quantified and used to predict changes in fifth graders' problem-solving performance. Found that four types of verbal imprecision predicted improved performance: false starts and self-repairs, deletions, long pauses, and metacognitive comments. Results suggested that adopting a new approach…

Compared were two samples of 173 and 95 aggressive and normal 5- to 8-year-old boys on measures of verbal and cognitive development. Aggressive boys were significantly lower than normal boys on nonverbal tests but not on verbal tests. The pattern of test performance which distinguished aggressive and normal was consistent with the hypothesis that…

Examined overregularization of irregular verb forms in children's language learning. Found that overregularization errors are relatively rare; occur at a constant rate; and are not correlated with the proportion of regular verbs in parents' or children's speech. Also found that a period of correct performance precedes the child's first error. (BC)

Focusing on language development--from beginning speech to literacy--with particular attention paid to growth in writing, this paper identifies and describes: (1) links between speech and writing; and (2) features of children's written and spoken texts that indicate growth. The process of constructing "texts" is presented as the fabric…

A question of both theoretical and practical importance for the study of phonological development is whether there is a difference in the status of productions rendered spontaneously by the child and those repeated by the child after either an adult model or his own production. The relevant theoretical questions are: (1) Are all the child's…

Parents of four nonverbal and four echolalic autistic children, aged five-nine, were trained to increase their children's speech by using the Natural Language Paradigm. Following training, parents increased the frequency with which they required their children to speak, and children increased the frequency of their verbalizations in three…