A paper by Keenan and Klein (1975) provided evidence for the hypothesis that conversationality is present in children as young as 2 and 1/2 years of age. Results of the study indicated that before the emergence of more adult-like coherency operations, the children passed through a period in which such operations were foreshadowed by vocal play.…

Young children's natural processes of language acquisition, the ways they learn a second language, and guides for teaching children a second language are discussed. Topics addressed include social influences on language acquisition, code-switching in bilingual communities, and the relationship of enculturation and acculturation to the development…

An exploration of the linguistic patterns and conversational strategies of adult learners was conducted to clarify the relationship between individuals' oral communicative ability and their levels of proficiency in the nonoral literate modes of reading and writing. The connection between social class and language development was also examined.…

A study was conducted to determine whether children give evidence of using any of six comprehension strategies and whether children of same and different ages use different strategies. It was studied how comprehension performance can best be predicted by other facts about the child, including his language and his language input. The six…

The work described in this paper was undertaken to study children's ability to preserve semantic relations during analogical mappings. Two experiments are described based on the understanding that metaphors and analogies are mappings from one semantic region (the domain of origin) to another (the range of application), which convey the idea that…

This paper reports the results of a preliminary study dealing with the ways in which children between ages 6 and 7 organize spoken language. In particular, aspects of the temporal and segmental structure of polysyllabic English words containing the syllable C/jul/, as in the word "pediculous," are dealt with. This study is based on the assumption…

Forty-eight nursery school and kindergarten children participated in a study of concept learning. The study focused on children's use of intensional and extensional information in the acquisition of basic and superordinate categories. The intension of a concept is its definition or set of defining attributes; its extension is the set of all…

THIS STUDY WAS MADE IN AN ATTEMPT TO DISCOVER HOW MUCH ENVIRONMENTAL STIMULATION IS NECESSARY FOR NORMAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN. THROUGH ANALYSIS OF TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMER, THE SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES OF TWENTY 5-YEAR-OLD CULTURALLY DEPRIVED NEGRO CHILDREN IN BALTIMORE WERE COMPARED TO THOSE OF A GROUP OF MIDDLE CLASS WHITE NURSERY SCHOOL…

This document is the first year's report of a continuing study of the effects of two Head Start preschool experimental programs. Subjects were children from poverty areas in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Seven teachers who were most opposed to a Bereiter-Engelmann type highly academic structured program were assigned to Group I; and seven teachers least…

This study attempted to find which factors determine the course of mental growth. The hypotheses were as follows: (1) early growth rates are rapid, chaotic, and uneven; (2) intellectual functions become more complex at age 2; (3) language is of overriding importance in intellectual growth; (4) more developed individuals have a longer infancy…

The role of language in conservation tasks and the development of the concept of conservation of quantity in young children are investigated in this study. A total of 50 children, aged 3.0 to 4.7 years, were divided into three groups according to age with a large number clustered around age 4.0 years. Children were randomly assigned to one of two…

This selective bibliography cites recent ERIC documents describing cultural differences and their influence on children's cognitive, social, emotional, and language development. The bibliography is divided into three sections: (1) Cultural Differences; (2) Preschool Education and Day Care; and (3) Elementary Education (contains many social studies…

This paper traces the development of interpersonal skills and characterizes the essential features of social interaction as they change from infancy to adolescence. It is demonstrated that, at each life stage, the quality of social relationships is dependent on the person's capacity for interpersonal closeness, his ability to use language, and his…

This report describes the Demonstration and Research Center for Early Childhood Education (DARCEE), a center initiated to develop knowledge to improve the educability of young children. The report includes a fold-out diagram of DARCEE intervention programs--completed, current, and planned. Each program is listed with (1) an explanation of the…

This research was designed to assess the effects of various curriculum materials and different levels of teacher training on the cognitive, intellectual, and language development of full-year Head Start children who were given intensive language training. The curriculum materials used were the "Sullivan-Buchanan Readiness Program," the…