In the present study, it was hypothesized that the proportion of open questions teachers ask during shared book reading would be directly and indirectly (through class aggregated mean length of utterance) related to children's vocabulary and would be directly and indirectly (through class aggregated mean length of children's utterance and…

Developing L2 learners' productive mastery of vocabulary is a challenging task. Recent research has called for greater attention to understanding how receptive vocabulary may be transformed for productive use (Schmitt, 2019). Using a design-based research methodology, this study investigated adult ESL learners' productive oral vocabulary…

Young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present with a broad range of spoken language abilities, as well as delays in precursor skills such as gesture production and joint attention skills. While standardized assessments describe language strengths, the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales (CSBS-DP) is a particularly robust…

Usage-based theories of language development underscore the importance of children using language to learn language. Few investigations have applied usage-based theories to dual language learners (DLLs), who comprise a growing share of children attending early education programs in the U.S. Three studies were carried out to investigate the role of…

Purpose: The study sought to determine whether the onset of canonical vocalizations in children with cochlear implants (CIs) is related to speech perception skills and spoken vocabulary size at 24 months postactivation. Method: The vocal development in 13 young CI recipients (implanted by their third birthdays; mean age at activation = 20.62…

This study investigated the associations between maternal depression when infants were 3 to 11 months old (M = 6 months), and positive parenting behaviors when children were between 12 and 22 months (M = 17 months) and the home language environment assessed when children were 18 to 28 months old (M = 23.5 months) in a sample of 29 low-income…

The sentences in texts are far more complex and diverse than those that children commonly encounter in oral language. This raises interesting questions as to whether the understanding of some sentence types might be more important than others in children's reading comprehension. Accordingly, we examined the relation between children's reading…

Background: Reading comprehension is a complex process influenced by many factors. However, the abilities that are known to influence reading comprehension may not contribute equally for children with different levels of oral language. Aims: Here we examined the relationship of two factors known to influence reading comprehension (morphology and…

This study investigated the constructs underlying second language (L2) word association (WA) with regard to three dimensions of lexical competence--size, organization, and accessibility--and the lexical performance of speech. One-hundred and thirteen Japanese learners of English completed a computer-delivered oral WA task along with three…

In this study, we investigated if children build a print-to-meaning connection via the semantic radical -- a mechanism we call "semantic decoding" -- and its interaction with phonological decoding in orthographic learning of Chinese compound characters. Ninety-two Grade 4 children were taught the pronunciations and meanings of 16…

Aims: The primary aim of this study is to augment our understanding of the component skills that underpin second-language learners' text comprehension by examining the direct and indirect roles of vocabulary knowledge and grammatical skills in second-language learners' listening and reading comprehension. Methods: Our sample included 134 learners…

Purpose: Although school-age children learn most new word meanings from surrounding context, the joint roles of language ability and executive function (EF) in the word learning process remain unclear. This study examined children's acquisition of word meanings from context in relation to oral language ability and three EF skills (working memory,…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to add to our understanding of the dimensionality of oral language in children and to determine whether oral language and listening comprehension are separate constructs in children enrolled in preschool (PK) through 3rd grade. Method: In the spring of the school year, children from 4 states (N = 1,869)…

The present study aimed to examine the contributions of two separate Pinyin skills and oral vocabulary to Chinese word reading of 70 third graders in a U.S. Mandarin Immersion program where Pinyin was introduced at Grade 3. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that Pinyin initial-final spelling--the skill to spell Chinese syllables using Pinyin…

Rejection by peers has devastating effects on children's social-cognitive development. As language difficulties have been found to be one of the underlying causes of peer rejection, the present study focused on the relation between these two variables. Specifically, this study was the first to test a hypothesized model connecting children's level…