Various theories of developmental language impairments have sought to explain these impairments in modality-specific ways--for example, that the language deficits in SLI or Down syndrome arise from impairments in auditory processing. Studies of signers with language impairments, especially those who are bilingual in a spoken language as well as a…

The use of social vs. cognitive approaches to the study of second language acquisition (SLA) has engendered considerable debate in the field. For instance, the recent "Modern Language Journal" Focus Issue (Lafford, 2007a) reviewed the ongoing debate between scholars espousing socially- and cognitively-grounded approaches to SLA research and…

Dijkstra and van Heuven lucidly summarize the important research generated by the BIA model and provide an excellent case for the BIA+ model with its critical separation of the identification system from the task/decision system. A keynote article necessarily offers a selective exposition of the authors' thinking and so my remarks are an…

Argues that some of the difficulties encountered in research on bilingualism cold be avoided if methodological and conceptual issues are closely monitored. (Author/VWL)