A replication and extention of a previous study involved 61 children aged three to five, who were asked to carry out certain instructions. Results indicate that children do observe the distinction between definite and indefinite pronouns as it applies to quantity. (Author/RM)

Tested the comprehension of 3- and 4-year-old children with probable and improbable sentences in active and passive voice in order to evaluate the importance of semantic support for comprehension of passive sentences. (Author/SDH)

On the basis of two experiments on comprehension, it is argued that children go through at least three stages in acquiring the deictic contrasts between "here and there," and between "this and that." Children follow different routes through these states, since they choose different starting points in mastering deitic contrasts.…

This article discusses a study designed to ascertain the comprehension of the role of "because" in a sentence in children between the ages of 5;8 and 10;11. (CFM)

Considering Jakobson's theory that speech disorders involve defects in paradigmatic or in syntagmatic operations, and that these two categories result in different defects, this question was examined: does the syntagmatic group suffer from defects not only in contextual generation of active speech but also in comprehension of grammatical…

Nine tasks were designed to test the developmental sequence of three types of "because" (affective, physical, concrete logical) in 100 children aged 3 to 7 years. The tasks tested whether comprehension of "because" preceded its usage and at what point children understood that sentences with reversed clauses were incorrect.…

Two studies were conducted to discover possible patterns in question acquisition. For the production study, questions were collected from 22 children aged two to eleven. In the comprehension study, 100 children, aged three to five, were tested. The test controlled syntax and vocabulary and varied specific "wh-" question-words. (Author/RM)

Describes a study showing that mentally retarded children and mentally normal children do not differ fundamentally in cognitive development within the framework of a particular cognitive training. (Text is in French.) (AM)

The study investigated the communicative effectiveness of word order in preschoolers' comprehension of meaning using simple questions and commands in an at-home play context. (ST)

This article discusses a study designed to determine the order of acquisition of the two expressions "in front of" and "behind," using two featureless objects. (CFM)

This report summarizes two years of research by a team at the University of Austin, aimed at developing and testing a model of sentence comprehension. The general model that has guided the work maintains that, on the basis of cues available in a sentence's surface form, the hearer projects hypotheses about the grammatical relations and semantic…

Early childhood learning of language has led some to postulate innate knowledge of an abstract symbolic linguistic system. However, if the child's abstract understanding initially requires concrete support in the form of agreement of the message with his nonlinguistic experience, the indication would be that the development of syntactic…

Thirteen papers given by language specialists are presented. These analyze special linguistic (semantic) problems that occur when interconnected strings of sentences constitute data base; they also analyze special psychological problems (of memory, inference, and motivation) that occur when human subjects are exposed to discourse materials in…

Discussion of the theoretical and methodological implications of six studies of the effect of children's expectations on comprehension of the passive transformation and of the Minimum Distance Principle. Study subjects were in kindergarten or elementary school. (Author/MP)

Infants learn their language by first determining, independent of language, the meaning which a speaker intends to convey to them, and by then working out the relationship between the meaning and the expression they heard. (Author)