Although the size of a child's vocabulary associates with language-processing skills, little is understood regarding how this relation emerges. This investigation asks whether and how the structure of vocabulary knowledge affects language processing in English-learning 24-month-old children (N = 32; 18 F, 14 M). Parental vocabulary report was used…

Preschool children were tested for their understanding of the words "more" and "less" in a comprehension condition and a construction condition. (Author/JMB)

Children in grades 1, 3, and 5 were asked to decide whether selected contradictory sentences were true or false. The age at which children were first able to evaluate the false sentences correctly corresponded to the relative speed with which adults evaluated the sentences in a timed vertification task. (Author/JMB)

Abilities of 2-, 5-, and 7-year-old children to interpret, judge acceptability of, and produce class extensions were assessed. It was concluded that increasing ability to deal appropriately with class extensions is primarily due to general advances in language acquisition rather than to any development unique to the class-extension word-formation…

Findings suggest that semantic knowledge for concrete objects is represented and organized in similar ways in autistic, retarded, and normal children. Previous findings on cognitive deficits in autistic children are more likely related to their inability to use cognitive representations in an appropriate and flexible manner. (Author/RH)

Presents a study which assessed preschool children's understanding of "front,""back," and "side" through a variety of tasks. A developmental sequence is defined. (ED)

The study investigated the communicative effectiveness of word order in preschoolers' comprehension of meaning using simple questions and commands in an at-home play context. (ST)

Analysis indicates that both 5 and 7-year-old children are capable of distinguishing between anomalous and meaningful sentences although 7-year-olds demonstrate greater awareness of selection restriction rules. (Authors)

Preschool- and kindergarten-age children's understanding of the distinct referential properties of collective and class nouns and the relationship between this understanding and performance in part-whole comparison tasks was examined in three experiments. Results indicate children understand the relationship between nouns and the sets to which…

Seeks to determine (1) whether 11- and 13-month-old infants directed their eye fixations to the referent of an object word said by the mother, and (2) whether there was a developmental shift in responding to object words at these two ages. Controls were set for response bias, stimulus preference, and maternal cuing. (Author/RH)

Examines life-span developmental differences in spontaneous integration of semantically relevant material presented in pictures and sentences. Elementary school students, high school students, and adults were tested. (Author/SS)