Generalization is the ability to apply regularities to novel instances, for example, correctly guessing that the plural for the novel English word 'wug' should be 'wugs'. Early language learners make overgeneralization errors like 'mouses', applying regularities beyond their attested uses. Theories concerned with the question of how learners learn…

The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine spelling acquisition in French children with developmental language disorder (DLD) over a school year. Through a fine-grained spelling error analysis, we investigated whether spelling profiles could be established in the DLD population. This study comprised three groups: a typically developing (TD)…

Previous word learning studies suggest that children with autism spectrum disorder may have difficulty understanding pictorial symbols. Here we investigate the ability of children with autism spectrum disorder and language-matched typically developing children to contextualize symbolic information communicated by pictures in a search task that did…

Children with autism spectrum disorder present with a variety of social communication deficits such as atypicalities in social gaze and verbal and non-verbal communication delays as well as perceptuo-motor deficits like motor incoordination and dyspraxia. In this study, we had the unique opportunity to study praxis performance in deaf children…

Background: The more a novel word conforms to the phonotactics of the language, the more wordlike it is and the easier it is to learn. It is unknown to what extent children with hearing loss (CHL) take advantage of phonotactic cues to support word learning. Aims: This study investigated whether CHL had similar sensitivities to wordlikeness during…

It is widely assumed that the British are poorer modern foreign language (MFL) learners than their fellow Europeans. Motivation has often been seen as the main cause of this perceived disparity in language learning success. However, there have also been suggestions that curricular and pedagogical factors may play a part. This article reports a…

Spelling is a prerequisite to expressing vocabulary in writing. Research has shown that children with dyslexia are hesitant spellers when composing. This study aimed to determine whether the hesitant spelling of children with dyslexia, evidenced by frequent pausing, affects vocabulary choices when writing. A total of 31 children with dyslexia,…

In this study, we performed a fine grained analysis of writing by children with a specific language impairment (SLI) and examined the contribution of oral language, phonological short-term memory (STM), nonverbal ability, and word reading to three writing constructs (productivity, complexity and accuracy). Forty-six children with SLI were compared…

Bilingual children are frequently misdiagnosed as having Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Misdiagnosis may be minimized by tests with high degrees of sensitivity and specificity. The current study used a new test, the School-Age Sentence Imitation Test-English 32 (SASIT-E32), to investigate sentence repetition in monolingual and bilingual…

This article explores selected phonological measures, their relationships to one another, and how groups differentiated by such measures change over time during intervention. Relationships among global quantitative measures of severity (percent consonants correct), measures of variability/consistency, and measures of whole-word complexity and…