Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop an accurate test scale for vocabulary comprehension ability applicable to Mandarin-speaking preschool children aged 3-5. Methods: First, an initial scale was developed and evaluated using the expert consultation method. Subsequently, 490 typically developing 3-5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children…

This longitudinal study examined how receptive and expressive vocabulary assessments capture vocabulary development in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children. Using mixed regression modelling, we explored when children with ASD significantly different from TD children. We also examined the variability…

Children's early understanding of mathematics provides a foundation for later success in school. Identifying ways to enhance mathematical instruction is crucial to understanding the ideal ways to promote academic success. Previous work has identified mathematical language (i.e., the words and concepts related to early mathematical development such…

Multiple domains develop simultaneously and interact throughout infancy and early childhood. Although relationships between motor and language skills have been examined cross-sectionally during the first three years of life, little is known regarding the individual factors that influence the development of these domains as well as the relationship…

Despite earlier claims that language abilities are intact in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS), many studies have shown that language development is often delayed and atypical, that is, it develops in line with different cognitive abilities compared to typically developing populations. It is unclear, however, whether general cognitive…

Research Findings: The present study investigates both the proximal processes and contextual influences on children's oral language development in preschool. We examine whether teacher language practices vary across activity settings and program type, which teacher language practices predict children's oral language skills, and potential…

A good deal of research purports that bilingualism has a positive effect on some aspects of cognitive functioning. However, this effect is not consistent, and little research examines trajectories of cognitive skill development in bilingual children. Moreover, it remains unclear whether different types of bilingualism impact how cognitive…

Testing of previously studied information potentiates subsequent learning of new information, a phenomenon referred to as the "forward testing effect" (FTE). The current study aimed to investigate the developmental trajectory of the FTE and whether the reset-of-encoding process contributes to the FTE. Younger children, older children,…

Toddlerhood is marked by advances in several lexico-semantic skills, including improvements in the size and structure of the lexicon and increased efficiency in lexical processing. This project seeks to delineate how early changes in vocabulary size and vocabulary structure support lexical processing (Experiment 1), and how these three skills…

Purpose: Speech and language disorders can negatively affect preschool children's communicative participation skills. Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six-34 (FOCUS-34) is a valid and reliable scale that evaluates communicative participation in preschool children with speech and language disorders. This study aimed to establish the…

More than half the global population is estimated to be multilingual, yet research on autistic children who grow up in multilingual environments remains scant. We conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed studies on multilingualism in autistic children and its impact on children's language and communication skills. Following Preferred…

A retrospective review of initial early intervention and early childhood special education (EI/ECSE) evaluation reports was completed to identify practices specific to the evaluation of Latinx children's communication development. A records abstraction approach employed entailed a random selection of 294 EI/ECSE evaluation reports completed in…

Introduction: Children born prematurely often score lower on standardized tests of language in early childhood. Less is known about longer term outcomes. This investigation considered language outcomes in pre-adolescent children born very preterm/very low birthweight, as assessed by both standardized test scores and language sample measures, and…

In many low- and middle-income countries, young children learn a mother tongue or indigenous language at home before entering the formal education system where they will need to understand and speak a country's official language(s). Thus, assessments of children before school age, conducted in a nation's official language, may not fully reflect a…

This research investigates the effect of production on 4.5- to 6-year-old children's recognition of newly learned words. In Experiment 1, children were taught four novel words in a produced or heard training condition during a brief training phase. In Experiment 2, children were taught eight novel words, and this time training condition was in a…