Infants show shifting patterns of visual engagement to faces over the first years of life. To explore the adaptive implications of this engagement, we collected eye-tracking measures on cross-sectional samples of 10-25-month-old typically developing toddlers (TD;N = 28) and those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD;N = 54). Concurrent language…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to identify predictors of expressive vocabulary in young Spanish-speaking children who are deaf or hard of hearing living in the United States. Method: This cross-sectional study considered 53 children with bilateral hearing loss between 8 and 34 months of age ( M = 24, SD = 6.9). Demographic variables,…

The differences and similarities in the word recognition and reading comprehension skills of monoliterate Albanian-Greek (ML2), biliterate Albanian-Greek (BL2) and monolingual (L1) children in grades 3-6 were examined in two cross-sectional studies. Participants completed standardized and experimental tasks measuring cognitive, oral language and…

The purpose of this study was to examine how classroom language contexts characterized by peer language skills and proportions of dual language learners (DLL) influenced English language development for DLL and non-DLL children. Participants were 2,131 children from 135 classrooms across preschool through Grade 3. Children were classified into…

Purpose: The aims of the study were to explore responses of children with developmental language disorder (DLD) to rich vocabulary instruction and to identify potential factors that contribute to outcomes. Method: Children with DLD participated in a language intervention embedded within a science camp. Using parent and clinician reports,…

Background: Physical education teacher behaviour has been a subject of study in physical education including physical education teacher education for 30 years. However, the research on teacher behaviour has tended to focus on direct teaching behaviour (DTB) to demonstrate the benefits of effective teaching, centred on a technical understanding of…

The oral re-telling of traditional tales, modelled by a storyteller and taught to children in school, can be understood as 'non-instrumental' practice in speaking and listening that emphasises oral language over the reading and writing of stories. While oral storytelling has significant benefits to children's education and development, it is…

This article reports the results of two studies on the vocabulary growth of advanced learners of English as a foreign language in an English-medium degree programme. Growth in learners' written receptive and productive vocabularies was investigated in one cross-sectional and one longitudinal study over three years. The effect of word frequency on…

Enhancing communication performance skills may help children with Down Syndrome (DS) to expand their opportunities for participation in daily life. It is a clinical challenge for speech-language pathologists (SLP) to disentangle various mechanisms that contribute to the language and communication problems that children with DS encounter. Without…

This study examines the problems encountered by trainee language teachers who strive to maintain their language skills at their optimum level in the classroom. Many trainees will admit that their language skills need refreshing and a significant number of mentors agree with them. This article explores language attrition and strategies that can be…

Self-regulation emerges throughout early childhood, and predicts later success in socially and cognitively challenging situations. Vygotsky proposed that symbols, particularly words, serve as mental tools to be used in service of self-regulation. Cross-sectional research indicates a positive but inconsistent association between language and…

This study reports data on form classes (e.g., nouns, verbs, modifiers) of the early vocabulary of an English-speaking boy with autism, to determine whether his language acquisition was referential or expressive. Results are compared with norms for normal and Down's syndrome populations. The predominance of nominals suggests a referential language…

A severely handicapped four-year-old with Down syndrome received training in comprehension and expressive use of Rebus symbols representing new words and generalization of symbol use to the classroom. Significant increases in comprehension and expression scores and generalized symbol use occurred. Development of verbal expressive skills were also…

The monograph describes a systematic attempt to develop language behavior in a nonverbal autistic 4.5-year-old boy who was essentially unresponsive to environmental stimuli of any kind. The 45-session intervention focused on teaching him to attend, increasing his responsiveness to people, effecting discriminative responses to a variety of…

The article describes language development techniques used with a 5-year-old autistic boy to increase his verbal behavior. Intervention consisted of 1.5 hour sessions four times a week over an 8-month period. The intervention focused on increasing nonvocal imitation, vocal imitation, verbal labeling, and verbal discrimination. Development of…