Purpose: We examined the neurocognitive bases of lexical morphology in children of varied reading abilities to understand the role of meaning-based skills in learning to read with dyslexia. Method: Children completed auditory morphological and phonological awareness tasks during functional near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging. We first examined…

Despite receiving scant attention, the evolution of categorization in early childhood is of central importance, not only in clarifying the child's understanding of the world but in terms of refining cognitive organization and augmenting the development of semantic memory. In this review, we outline how categorization develops and is made manifest…

Organized semantic representations encoding across- and within-domain distinctions are a hallmark of mature cognition, and understanding how they change with experience and learning is a key endeavor in developmental science. Existing computational modeling studies provide a mechanistic framework for understanding how structured semantic…

We examined whether children's ability to integrate speech and gesture follows the pattern of a broader developmental shift between 3- and 5-year-old children (Ramscar & Gitcho, 2007) regarding the ability to process two pieces of information simultaneously. In Experiment 1, 3-year-olds, 5-year-olds, and adults were presented with either an…

Category-based induction is a hallmark of mature cognition; however, little is known about its origins. This study evaluated the hypothesis that category-based induction is related to semantic development. Computational studies suggest that early on there is little differentiation among concepts, but learning and development lead to increased…

The effect of list length on children's false memories was investigated using list and story versions of the Deese/Roediger-McDermott procedure. Short (7 items) and long (14 items) sequences of semantic associates were presented to children aged 6, 8, and 10 years old either in lists or embedded within a story that emphasized the list theme.…

Children's sensitivity to the quality of epistemic reasons and their selective trust in the more reasonable of 2 informants was investigated in 2 experiments. Three-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (N = 90) were presented with speakers who stated different kinds of evidence for what they believed. Experiment 1 showed that children of all age groups…

Recent studies on the acquisition of semantics have argued that knowledge of the universal quantifier is adult-like throughout development. However, there are domains where children still exhibit non-adult-like universal quantification, and arguments for the early mastery of relevant semantic knowledge do not explain what causes such…

The relation between the maturation of brain mechanisms responsible for the N400 elicitation in the event-related brain potential (ERP) and the development of behavioral language skills was investigated in 12-month-old infants. ERPs to words presented in a picture-word priming paradigm were analyzed according to the infants' production and…

This study sought to test the most efficient representation mode with which children with hearing impairment could express a story while producing connectives indicating relations of time and of cause and effect. Using Bruner's (1973, 1986, 1990) representation stages, we tested the comparative effectiveness of Virtual Reality (VR) as a mode of…

In six analyses using the Child Language Data Exchange System known as CHILDES, we explored whether and how parents and their 1.5- to 5-year-old children talk about writing. Parent speech might include information about the similarity between print and speech and about the difference between writing and drawing. Parents could convey similarity…

A study was conducted to test an hypothesis relating semantic structures to cognitive development, specifically that the mean number of associative complexes used by a group of children will be significantly greater than the mean number of associative complexes used by a group of adolescents. The word game "Password" provided a simulation of a…

"More" and "less" were analyzed into two meaning dimensions, "occurence" and "quantity", which were hypothesized to be developmentally related to acts of addition and subtraction. (SBT)

Compares two types of semantic development (the acquisition of disappearance words and success-failure words) to performance on two types of cognitive tasks (object-permanence and means-ends tasks) among infants. (HOD)

As the first title in the new series, "New Directions in Communication Disorders Research: Integrative Approaches", this volume discusses a unique phenomenon in cognitive science, single-word reading, which is an essential element in successful reading competence. Single-word reading is an interdisciplinary area of research that incorporates…