Vygotsky's views on how language is instrumental in bringing about advanced forms of intellectual functioning offer a researchable framework from which to study this development. Developmentalists in psychology and linguistics have focused for too long on continuities rather than on the process of change in mental growth. The study of the…

How a child answers questions provides information about how he or she processes input. A child's early responses to questions at age one year, three months, were compared to her responses at one year, seven months, when she was in the two-word stage. (SW)

In studying the effects of different teaching methods on preschoolers' language abilities it was found that the productive training condition produced more generalized responding on other kinds of tasks. (Editor)

Sixteen children (aged 14 to 26 months), who were reported by their parents to overextend, were tested for overextension in both language production and comprehension. The children were first asked to name each of a series of pictures of inappropriate exemplars of the words they were reported to overextend. Those words that were overextended, a…

Three empirical studies were conducted to investigate the hypothesis that the "easy to see" construction (such as in the sentence "children are hard to understand") is acquired at a younger age than the 7-9 year range reported by previous studies (Cambon and Sinclair, 1974; Chomsky, 1969; 1972; Cromer, 1970; Kessel, 1970).…

This article hypothesizes that language repetition of young children (in the sense used by Kobashigawa and Snow) does not help language acquisition. The evidence comes from the results of a prior study in which no indication was found that mothers who repeat themselves a great deal have children who acquire language more quickly. However,…

A cognitive-based system of analysis of spoken discourse was designed to provide details about the way pupils think and talk about issues arising from prose material. Written and spoken responses were analyzed to examine the effects of intellectual ability, differences in the stimulus passage, and prior small group discussion. (Note: Page…

One of three related documents produced in response to a need for direct instruction in thinking skills at the secondary level, this program for high school students bases its approach on involvement of students in direct experiences. Designed to build on the thinking skills that the student already possesses and, ideally, on the experience gained…

A general model for second language learning is proposed in this paper. First, this model aims to describe different components (input, intake, integration, output) of the learning process in terms of the information (explicit/implicit, linguistic/sociolinguistic) to which the learner is exposed. Secondly, the model serves to identify the stages,…

One of three related documents produced in response to a need for direct instruction in thinking skills at the secondary level, this teaching guide for Book One and Book Two of "Thinking Through Language" is intended for junior or senior high school English teachers. The guide contains an introduction and summaries of Book One and Book Two,…

One of three related documents produced in response to a need for direct instruction in thinking skills, this program for middle school or junior high school students bases its approach on involvement of students in direct experiences. The book contains four units. Focusing on perception, Unit 1: "Experiencing the Arts" begins with ways sensory…