This study investigated the communication skills of children with autism spectrum disorders (H. M. Geurts & M. Embrechts), Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (Hilde M Geurts & Mariëtte Embrechts), and learning disability (H. M. Geurts & M. Embrechts) using the Children Communication Checklist to identify any commonalities in…

How to help babies and young children right from birth to become competent in talking as well as emergent literacy is illustrated by research findings as well as with specific clinical stories. Both kinds of knowledge can serve to galvanize parents and teachers to increase awareness of infant and preschool language development and the crucial role…

Decades of research have identified features of classrooms and teachers' talk that are associated with children's language growth. Unfortunately, much of this work has not yet translated to widespread practice in early childhood classrooms. Given the important contributions that early language development makes to later academic achievement,…

This article explores aspects of early language and literacy that may predict later literacy development. It explores a range of assessment procedures used for oral language, vocabulary, sentence structure and phonology and early reading and writing. The article then describes a small-scale study which highlights the disconnections between the…

In this article, we take a linguistic perspective to support effective communication between early educators and parents who speak English as a second language and may have limited English proficiency. Positive communication and partnerships are recognised as important for the education of young children. Because early educators may be unaware of…

Language is a fantastic gift: it empowers humans to create new ways of speaking with, for and to others about any topic or experience. Language is a rule-governed, meaningful communication system. It is a symbol system, where a word or phrase stands for or represents something else that can be touched, thought about, seen, heard, felt, done,…