The present study explored developmental differences in preschoolers' use of reported speech and internal state language in personal narratives. Three-, four-, and five-year-olds attending a laboratory preschool shared 204 stories about 'a time when you were happy/sad'. Stories were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded for reported speech…

Purpose: The identification of child, device, and family/environmental factors that are associated with optimum language outcomes for infants and children using cochlear implants is a high research priority. Understanding the contributions of these factors for an individual child and family may inform clinical decisions about intensity of services…

Purpose: Conversational latency entails the temporal feature of turn-taking, which is understudied in autistic children. The current study investigated the influences of child-based and parental factors on conversational latency in autistic children with heterogeneous spoken language abilities. Method: Participants were 46 autistic children aged…

Previous research links resting frontal gamma power to key developmental outcomes in young neurotypical (NT) children and infants at risk for language impairment. However, it remains unclear whether gamma power is specifically associated with language or with more general cognitive abilities among young children diagnosed with autism spectrum…

Sometime before their second birthday, many children have a period of rapid expressive vocabulary growth called the vocabulary spurt. Theories of the underlying mechanisms differ: Accumulator models emphasize the accumulation of experience with words over time to yield a spurtlike pattern, while cognitive models attribute the spurt to cognitive…

A basic question about bilingual development is how the acquisition of one language affects the acquisition of the other. Previous findings are few and mixed. The present study addressed this question with longitudinal data on the dual-language vocabulary growth of 149 US-born children from Spanish-speaking immigrant families, who were followed…

Background: Despite the ability of cochlear implants (CIs) to provide children with access to speech, there is considerable variability in spoken language outcomes. Research aimed at identifying factors influencing speech production accuracy is needed. Aims: To characterize the consonant production accuracy of children with cochlear implants…

This study examines receptive-expressive language, gross-fine motor skills, and IQ abilities in 78 children, 43 children with an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder (Sibs-ASD) and 35 children with an older sibling with typical development, ranging from 4 to 11 years of age. Depending on age, both groups were divided in preschool and school…

Previous research has shown language-specific features play a guiding role in how children develop expression of events with speech and gestures. This study adopts a multimodal approach and examines Mandarin Chinese, a language that features context use and verb serializations. Forty children (four-to-seven years old) and ten adults were asked to…

We reexamined the efficacy of Pathways early autism intervention using generalized measures of social communication and language skills administered by an unfamiliar adult in a novel environment. Generalized measures improve on sources of measurement bias. Sixty-seven autistic children blocked on age (under versus over 3 years) were randomly…

Background: Language interventions are complex behavioural interventions, making it difficult to distinguish the specific factors contributing to efficacy. The efficacy of oral language comprehension interventions varies greatly, but the reasons for this have received little attention. Aims: The aim of this meta-analysis was to examine which…

Purpose: This cross-sectional study aimed to depict expressive language profiles and clarify lexical-grammatical interrelationships in Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) during the administration of the simplified Chinese Psychoeducational Profile--Third Edition screening. Method: We collected naturalistic language…

This study investigates the acquisition and maintenance of periphrastic and se-passives in second language (L2), heritage (HS), and (Spanish-dominant) native Spanish speakers (NS) by addressing: (i) How accessible are Spanish periphrastic passives (which also exist in English) and se-passives (unique to Spanish) for L2ers and HSs in production?…

A wealth of parent-report research shows adaptive functioning difficulties in autistic children, with parent-report influenced by a number of child factors. Adaptive functioning in autistic children is known to vary across settings; however, no research has yet explored factors influencing education professional-report. This study investigated the…

Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children with cochlear implants (CwCIs) constitute a heterogeneous population. A multitude of factors influence their spoken language development. There is evidence that CwCIs follow similar trajectories in language development as typically developing (TD) children but there is a lack of research on specific types of…