Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of code-switching on bilingual children's online processing and offline comprehension of sentences in the presence of noise. In addition, the study examined individual differences in language ability and cognitive control skills as moderators of children's ability to process…

As we listen to speech, our ability to understand what was said requires us to retrieve and bind together individual word meanings into a coherent discourse representation. This so-called semantic unification is a fundamental cognitive skill, and its development relies on the integration of neural activity throughout widely distributed functional…

Variability in children's language acquisition is likely due to a number of cognitive and social variables. The current study investigated whether individual differences in statistical learning (SL), which has been implicated in language acquisition, independently predicted 6- to 8-year-old's comprehension of syntax. Sixty-eight (N = 68)…

Bilingual children experience more variation in their language environment than monolingual children and this impacts their rate of language development with respect to monolinguals. How long it takes for bilingual children learning English as a second language (L2) to display similar abilities to monolingual age-peers has been estimated to be 4-6…

A review of studies in which signing or symbol use has been taught to autistic individuals suggests that these techniques can provide a means of communication and language development for the autistic, including mute and retarded children. (RH)

Reviews findings of recent television research and discusses two dominant issues: the nature and determinants of children's attention to television, and the amount and kind of content retained by different age groups. It is recommended that research on media effects incorporate age-related and individual difference factors. Nineteen references are…

The paper describes a current longitudinal study to examine the speech perception abilities of profoundly hearing-impaired children who use either a cochlear implant or tactile aid. Initial findings indicate large individual differences among subjects with implants and uniformly poor performance by the three subjects with tactile aids. (Author/DB)

In order to examine the influence of interactive media on children's story memory, first-grade children experienced a computer-based story in one of four presentation modes, two of which were interactive. In the interaction groups, there was no relation between the amount of interaction with the story and subsequent memory. (Author)

Two hundred Honolulu-area students from the fourth, fifth, eighth, and ninth grades participated in a study that examined the variables effects of five selected factors (developmental level, sex, reading ability, adult intervention, and variation in film content/form) on the ability of two age groups (nine and ten year old children and thirteen…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether memory support and elicited production differentially benefited fast mapping of new vocabulary (comprehension, production accuracy, and speed) in adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) compared with typically developing (TD) children matched for syntax comprehension. The study also examined…