The unique relation of language use (i.e., output) to language growth was investigated for forty-seven 30-month-old Spanish-English bilingual children (27 girls, 20 boys) whose choices of which language to speak resulted in their levels of English output differing from their levels of English input. English expressive vocabularies and receptive…

The naturalistic acquisition of Dutch by English speakers of different ages was examined longitudinally to test the hypothesis that second language acquisition is most efficient before the age of puberty when cerebral lateralization is complete. Results did not support this critical period hypothesis for language acquisition. (JMB)

Infants 5-17 weeks of age were presented with foreign sounds which were contingent upon their nonnutritive sucking. Significant differences were found for experimental versus control (no sound change) subjects. It was found that adults achieved perfect accuracy with English contrasts but readily confused the foreign contrasts. (Author/SB)

This study examined several hypotheses about second language learning by testing them in a training format designed to teach Spanish to children in the fifth through eighth grades and to adults in night school. (JMB)