Examined whether use of statistical properties of syllable sequences is uniquely tied to linguistic materials for adults and 8-month olds. Found that both groups were able to segment a continuous non-linguistic auditory sequence or tone stream, with performance indistinguishable from that obtained from syllable streams. Results suggests that the…

Three studies examined lexical categorization in 2-year- olds. Findings indicated that even with minimal opportunities to familiarize themselves with novel artifacts, children generalized their names in accordance with the objects' functions, even when they had to discover the functions on their own or when all the test objects had some…

Investigated young children's ability to talk about representational aspects of pretense. Found that 5-year-olds, but very few 4-year-olds, can explain why certain actions should not be called pretending; young children discriminate between pictures of thinking and pretending based on a depiction of action; and preschoolers are less able than…

Notes that regardless of the language, children acquire language on the same general schedule and the same cognitive path. Explores the process of child language acquisition, from sounds, through word meanings, to syntax and grammar. (HTH)

Details findings indicating that most early linguistic competence is item based. Maintains that language development proceeds without evidence of system-wide syntactic categories, schemas, or parameters. Suggests that findings are not easily explained by the development of children's skills of linguistic performance, pragmatics, or other external…

Background: Previous studies in the literature report that deaf individuals who experience late access to language perform poorly on false belief tests of Theory of Mind (ToM) compared with age-matched deaf and hearing controls exposed to language early. Methods: A group of 22 deaf Nicaraguans (aged 7 to 39 years) who learned Nicaraguan Sign…

This paper examines what children believe about unmapped number words--those number words whose exact meanings children have not yet learned. In Study one, 31 children (ages 2-10 to 4-2) judged that the application of "five" and "six" changes when numerosity changes, although they did not know that equal sets must have the same number word. In…

There is growing evidence that cumulative exposure to highly responsive parenting styles throughout the early childhood period may provide a variety of important child benefits in terms of language, cognitive, social, and emotional development. We view maternal responsivity as a dynamic construct of central importance to the development of…

This longitudinal study combined, in a single study, different aspects of children's knowledge about mental phenomena and thus could investigate relations among the development of language, theory of mind, and later metamemory. In total, 183 German children were tested at ages 3, 4, and 5. Each time of testing included a set of theory-of-mind…

The use of four types of psychological state words (physiological, emotional, desire, and cognitive) during mother-child play sessions at ages 3, 4, and 5 years was examined in 30 children diagnosed with delayed expressive language at 24-31 months and 15 age-matched comparison children with typical development. The children's mean length of…

Afrikaans and Sesotho are two of the 11 official languages of the Republic of South Africa. Data on the acquisition of these languages are scarce. It is interesting to compare the acquisition of the two languages because they are very different in grammatical structure. In addition, cultural differences may possibly be visible in the style of…

This report presents findings from the Massachusetts Family Child Care study, a two-year evaluation of the impacts of an early childhood education program on providers and children in family child care. The program--"LearningGames"--is designed to train caregivers to stimulate children's cognitive, language, and social-emotional…

Viewing language acquisition as the product of a biased learner who takes advantage of the information available from a variety of sources in his or her environment, this book provides a new way of thinking about the process of language comprehension. The analysis in the book borrows insights from theories about the development of mental models,…

The author identifies two operations, "dump" and "play", that take place in human communication and analyzes the communication efforts of young children (prior to age 8) in terms of the limitations in cognitive development that govern their communication. (Author/LS)

There are a number of views of the relationship between language and thinking. Two prominent figures in developmental psychology, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, proposed theories of language and thinking which also involve the notion of "communication." For Piaget, thinking develops first, and language comes along as an expression of…