The present study examined individual differences in the development of sustained attention across toddlerhood, as well as how these individual differences related to the development of language and sleep. Toddlers (N = 314; 54% male) were assessed at 30, 36, and 42 months using multiple measures of attention, a standardized language assessment,…

Purpose: Narrative skill represents a higher-level linguistic skill that shows incremental development in the preschool years. During these years, there are considerable individual differences in this skill, with some children being highly skilled narrators (i.e., precocious) relative to peers of their age. In this study, we explored the…

Purpose: We evaluated whether naive listeners' ratings of the gender typicality of the speech of children assigned male at birth (AMAB) and children assigned female at birth (AFAB) were different at two time points: one at which children were 2.5-3.5 years old and one when they were 4.5-5.5 years old. We also examined whether measures of speech,…

This practice report describes a 12-week stand-alone course designed to address the challenges university students face in foreign language classes. Adopting principles of transformative language learning, course content, activities and resources were designed and implemented to dispel myths and preconceptions regarding language instruction,…

Multisensory attention skills provide a crucial foundation for early cognitive, social, and language development, yet there are no fine-grained, individual difference measures of these skills appropriate for preverbal children. The Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol (MAAP) fills this need. In a single video-based protocol requiring no…

Purpose: We evaluated genetic and environmental contributions to individual differences in language skills during early adolescence, measured by both language sampling and standardized tests, and examined the extent to which these genetic and environmental effects are stable across time. Purpose: We evaluated genetic and environmental…

Narrative production draws upon linguistic, cognitive and pragmatic skills, and is subject to substantial individual differences. This study aimed to characterise the development of narrative production in late childhood and to assess whether children's cumulative experience of reading fiction is associated with individual differences in narrative…

Foreign language education has now been implemented at the elementary school level across Europe, and early foreign language education has gained traction following language policies set by the European Commission. The long-term effects of an early start, however, have not received ample scientific scrutiny. The present study assessed early…

The current study examined the effects of text-based relational (i.e., cohesion), propositional-specific (i.e., lexical), and syntactic features in a source text on subsequent integration of the source text in spoken responses. It further investigated the effects of word integration on human ratings of speaking performance while taking into…

This investigation was aimed at studying the relations between executive functions (EFs) and categorical emotion understanding while controlling for preschoolers' IQ, language ability and theory of mind (ToM). Specifically, we wanted to analyse the association between emotion understanding and set shifting, due to the lack of studies with this EF.…

Links between young children's everyday use of mindful conversational skills and their success on laboratory tests of theory of mind understanding (ToM) were evaluated. Using published scales, teachers rated the conversational behavior and shyness of 129 children aged 60 to 101 months (M = 78·8 months) who were in their first years of primary…

Purpose: The capacity to update and monitor the contents of working memory is an executive function presumed to play a critical role in language processing. The current study used an individual differences approach to consider the relationship between memory updating and accurate reference to story characters in the narratives of typically…

This longitudinal study explored the rate of language growth of children in an early intervention program providing auditory-verbal therapy. A retrospective investigation, the study applied a linear growth model to estimate a mean growth curve and the extent of individual variation in language performance on the Preschool Language Scale, 4th ed.…

Assessed age-related changes in 2- to 4-year olds' verbal and nonverbal memory for the same unique event. Found that children's performance on each memory measure increased as a function of age. Children with more advanced language skills reported more during the verbal interview and exhibited superior nonverbal memory relative to children with…

Examined the etiology of individual differences in literacy, phonological awareness, and language ability in monozygotic and dizygotic twins. Found that there was no genetic link between phonological awareness and literacy independent of general language ability. Individual differences in literacy ability were substantially influenced by genetics…