Students with language-based learning disabilities demonstrate learning challenges that must be addressed to enable them to succeed academically. Some of these students have difficulty with the process of organizing their thoughts about information acquired and expressing them in the form of an explanation, both of which are critical to effective…

In this paper it is proposed that the prefrontal lobe participates in two closely related but different executive function abilities: (1) "metacognitive executive functions": problem solving, planning, concept formation, strategy development and implementation, controlling attention, working memory, and the like; that is, executive functions as…

Children's use of proforms in spoken descriptions of real situations was studied and compared with that of adults to explore possible developmental progressions in the use of indexical reference. A discourse distinction between situational and textual reference was applied to data from 6-year-old and 10-year-old children and from adults. Subjects…

Examination of object word learning and use in beginning (vocabulary of less than 50 words) and advanced (vocabulary of more than 50 words) infant speakers indicated that both groups formed concepts, learned, and generalized words for the to-be-learned objects. Advanced speakers learned more words and concepts and engaged in broader generalization…

Since there is a lack of studies that reveal school age children's oral competence in story production, a five-year longitudinal descriptive study was undertaken to determine a child's sense of story as revealed by children's oral generation of stories. The specific story elements analyzed were sources of their stories, narrative form, formal…

Presents conversations of a group of fifth graders collaborating on a social studies task to illustrate how childen use language to learn. Focuses on one student whose oral language was rapid and chaotic but who demonstrated extremely sophisticated and complex structuring of knowledge to understand a particular social studies concept. (HTH)

Explains how a learner-centered approach works on "Talkbase," an eight-week workshop in language and technology. This article describes how participants coped with a new educational experience in which participants carried out tasks, learned through active investigation, developed concepts and skills and gained confidence to express…