The number of older siblings a child has is negatively correlated with the child's verbal skills, an effect that is well known in the literature. However, few studies have examined the effect of older siblings' sex, of the age gap between siblings, of having foreign-speaking parents, as well as the mediating role of parental interaction. Using…

Connectives such as "because" and "but" are crucial for signaling coherence relations in discourse. They contribute to a better reading comprehension and, thus, academic performance. The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of connective development during teenage years by studying individual differences in…

To explore the roles of character recognition, expressive vocabulary, and syntactic awareness in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students' reading fluency, 52 Chinese DHH students (mean age = 13.29 years) in elementary school participated in the present study. The results showed that character recognition, expressive vocabulary, and syntactic…

There is evidence of a relation between the approximate number system (ANS) and later mathematics achievement. Researchers have proposed various mediators of this relation, including executive functioning (EF), numeral knowledge, and mathematical language. The goal of the present study was to determine which factors mediate the relation between…

It is well established that deictic gestures, especially pointing, play an important role in children's language development. However, recent evidence suggests that other types of deictic gestures, specifically show and give gestures, emerge before pointing and are associated with later pointing. In the present study, we examined the development…

Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to examine mothers' sophisticated vocabulary while reminiscing with their preschool-aged children, and its relation to children's story comprehension. The study used a cross-lagged panel design in which all assessments were collected twice, 6 months apart. We also compared two methods of examining…

Children develop early literacy and numeracy skills from an early age. The primary aim of the current study is to examen links between early literacy skills and early numeracy skills during preschool education in France. This study involves 313 kindergarten students (152 girls and 161 boys), aged between 3.44 and 7.02 years (mean age = 5.07 years,…

This study examines the influence of bilingual status, language-internal (complexity of L1 phonology), language-external (dominance), and lexical (L2 vocabulary score) factors on phonological production in French-speaking monolingual (n = 37) and bilingual children (n = 64) aged three to six years. Children participated in an object and picture…

Introduction: Social knowledge is an important aspect of social cognition that pertains to broader knowledge of social concepts and norms. People with intellectual disabilities are more likely to experience mental health challenges, and it's important to pay special attention to how comorbid conditions can affect their social cognition skills,…

Emerging evidence suggests that executive function plays an important role in adult readers' understanding of text. This study examined the contribution of executive function to comprehension of expository science text among adult readers, as well as the role of vocabulary ability in the relation between executive function and text comprehension.…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to examine the effects of cognitive and linguistic skills on masked speech recognition for children with normal hearing in three different masking conditions: (a) speech-shaped noise (SSN), (b) amplitude-modulated SSN (AMSSN), and (c) two-talker speech (TTS). We hypothesized that children with better working…

Few studies have examined growth and predictors of receptive vocabulary in children with autism spectrum disorder. Here we aimed to compare receptive vocabulary from 4 to 8 years and identify predictors of receptive vocabulary, at 8 years, in children with and without autism spectrum disorder. Participants were drawn from a nationally…

Inference making is fundamental to the construction of a coherent mental model of a text. We examined how vocabulary and verbal working memory relate to inference development concurrently and longitudinally in 4- to 9-year-olds. Four hundred and twenty prekindergartners completed oral assessments of inference making, vocabulary breadth, vocabulary…

Purpose: Reading comprehension is consistently poor in many school-age children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The purpose of this tutorial is to provide an overview from a multicomponent view on the many predictors that may contribute to reading comprehension difficulties in ASD. Method: This tutorial reviews current literature on profiles…

This study examined whether visual-spatial attention could predict Chinese reading achievement longitudinally beyond some well-established reading precursors. A total of 257 second- and third-grade Hong Kong Chinese-speaking children participated in the study. Visual-spatial attention was measured by visual search tasks, which assessed the skills…