Background and Aim: Recently, there has been a lot of interest surrounding the term gestalt language processor (GLP) which is associated with Natural Language Acquisition (NLA): a protocol intended to support the language development of autistic people. In NLA, delayed echolalia is presumed raw source material that GLPs use to acquire language in…

This dissertation investigates the interaction of developing extralinguistic cognitive systems with early language learning and processing through the case study of verb argument structure. The interaction of these systems with the linguistic system underpins fundamental theories of language learning and use: language does not exist in isolation.…

This study investigates the impact of evidentiality on source monitoring and the impact of source monitoring on false belief understanding (FBU), while controlling for short-term memory, age, gender, and receptive vocabulary. One hundred (50 girls) monolingual 3- and 4-year-olds from Turkey and the UK participated in the study in 2019. In Turkish,…

Working memory is necessary for a wide variety of cognitive abilities. Developmental work has shown that as working memory capacities increase, so does the ability to successfully perform other cognitive tasks, including language processing. The present work demonstrates the effects of working memory availability on children's language production.…

In natural language, evidence suggests that, while some rules are productive (regular), applying broadly to new words, others are restricted to a specific set of lexical items (irregular). Further, the literature suggests that children make a categorical distinction between regular and irregular rules, applying only regular rules productively…

Purpose: The aims of this study were to examine phonological short-term memory in children born preterm (PT) and to explore relations between this neuropsychological process and later language skills. Method: Children born PT (n = 74) and full term (FT; n = 60) participated in a nonword repetition (NWR) task at 36 months old. Standardized measures…

Four tasks (N = 191, 3- to 6-year-olds) examined the effect of instrumental versus conventional language cues on children's imitative fidelity of a necklace-making activity, their memory and transmission of the activity, and their perceptions of functional fixedness. Children in the conventional condition imitated with higher fidelity, transmitted…

The present research aims to assess literacy acquisition in children becoming bilingual via second language immersion in school. We adopt a cognitive components approach, assessing text-level reading comprehension, a complex literacy skill, as well as underlying cognitive and linguistic components in 144 children aged 7 to 14 (72 immersion…

Background: Pitch perception is enhanced among persons with autism. We extended this finding to memory for pitch and melody among school-aged children. Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate pitch memory in musically untrained children with autism spectrum disorders, aged 7-13 years, and to compare it to that of age- and…

Purpose: This study explored associations between working memory and language in children aged 2-4 years. Method: Seventy-seven children aged 24-30 months were assessed on tests measuring language, visual cognition, verbal working memory (VWM), phonological short-term memory (PSTM), and processing speed. A standardized test of receptive and…

Across languages and event types (i.e., agentive and nonagentive motion, transfer, change of state, attach/detach), goal paths are privileged over source paths in the linguistic encoding of events. Furthermore, some linguistic analyses suggest that goal paths are more central than source paths in the semantic and syntactic structure of motion…

"Focus on form" (FonF) is a central construct in task-based language teaching. The term was first introduced by Michael Long to refer to an approach where learners' attention is attracted to linguistic forms as they engage in the performance of tasks. It contrasts with a structure-based approach--"focus on forms" (FonFs)--where…

Upon hearing a novel word, language learners must identify its correct meaning from a diverse set of situationally relevant options. Such referential ambiguity could be reduced through "repetitive" exposure to the novel word across diverging learning situations, a learning mechanism referred to as "cross-situational learning."…

Purpose: To determine whether word learning problems associated with developmental language impairment (LI) reflect deficits in encoding or subsequent remembering of forms and meanings. Method: Sixty-nine 18-to 25-year-olds with LI or without (the normal development [ND] group) took tests to measure learning of 16 word forms and meanings…

Children recruit verb syntax to guide verb interpretation. We asked whether 22-month-olds spontaneously encode information about a particular novel verb's syntactic properties through listening to sentences, retain this information in long-term memory over a filled delay, and retrieve it to guide interpretation upon hearing the same novel verb…