Reading research in which different methods or materials have been compared has proven inconclusive. This paper is restricted to beginning reading, defined as the acquisition of letter-sound decoding ability, and raises the question: what skills are required by current tests? Available reading readiness and achievement tests consist of batteries…

This article clarifies the position taken in the Greenfield and Smith book (1976), including relation to speech act theory, and elucidates some general theoretical issues in early language development. (Author/NCR)

Problems in teaching language communication to the congenitally deaf child are discussed in this essay, and then suggestions are offered for providing mental development, development of verbal and associative memory, sensory training, and training in abstract reasoning. (LBH)

To determine the impact of child abuse on the developmental functioning of infants, 30 cases of physically abused children (2 to 29.8 months old) were compared to a reference group of 30 nonabused children. (Author/SBH)

In an attempt to clarify the role of nonlinguistic preferences in children's responses to the words more and less, children 3-4 years of age were administered three tasks. (Author/SB)

Endel Tulving's distinction between "episodic" and "semantic" memory defines age differences in word association norms more comprehensively than the usual syntactic classifications. As subjects mature the principal development is an episodic-semantic shift. Young children associate primarily with the stimulus' perceived…

Examination of object word learning and use in beginning (vocabulary of less than 50 words) and advanced (vocabulary of more than 50 words) infant speakers indicated that both groups formed concepts, learned, and generalized words for the to-be-learned objects. Advanced speakers learned more words and concepts and engaged in broader generalization…

A four-level taxonomy is proposed for categorizing the ways that literacy is defined in education. The taxonomy is then used to examine the results of recent research on early literacy development. Principles for preparing a reading curriculum to develop literacy are suggested. (Author/MT)

Data from 226 adoptive and 224 nonadoptive families was used to explore the etiology of individual differences in communication development. Children's scores from the Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development (SICD) were compared with verbal and cognitive ability measures of their parents. Sibling correlations were also examined. (SKC)

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)

Reviews early theoretical and research literature on handedness and places it within the larger context of the nature-nurture controversy. Discussion focuses on Baldwin's study of the development of hand preference in infants in relation to the recapitulation theory, mental development ("dynamogenesis"), and speech development.…

Discusses differences between authors' view of conversation and Ervin-Tripp's (included in this issue) on the similarities between adult and child conversation, planfulness in achieving topic coherence, the generalization of research results to other groups, and the socialization of conversational behavior. Also presents evidence supporting their…

Used descriptive analysis and a forced choice task to investigate childrens' and adults' production, interpretation, and judgment of notation. Results showed that young children may not impose the same symbol-meaning structure at decoding that was proposed at encoding. Only after this ability develops does a preference for one form-one function…

Four children were videotaped playing with their mothers, first in a situation with gestures, and then in a situation without gestures. Results showed that maternal gestures have more of a role in maintaining attention and flow of interaction for young children than they do in providing specific cues to the grammar the child is acquiring. (SL)

Two studies were conducted with a task allowing detailed examination of how information in stimulus arrays is captured in children's descriptions. How children select information and the role of modeling are dealt with. (Author/SB)