It has been 20 years since Bever's (1982) and Strauss and Stavy's (1982) books on U-shaped functions in human development were published. The three target articles in this issue describe several old and new U-shaped functions and new theoretical explanations for their existence. In this article, the authors will comment on two aspects of U-shaped…

Research on reading has tried, and failed, to account for wide disparities in reading skill even among children taught by the same method. Why do some children learn to read easily and quickly while others, in the same classroom and taught by the same teacher, don't learn to read at all? In "Language Development and Learning to Read", Diane…