The few reports on the language skills of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) offer conflicting evidence on whether they face significant challenges, and if so, whether these challenges are present in all aspects of language. Here, we investigated a sample of Greek-speaking children with ADHD (n = 29) using a structural…

Despite earlier claims that language abilities are intact in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS), many studies have shown that language development is often delayed and atypical, that is, it develops in line with different cognitive abilities compared to typically developing populations. It is unclear, however, whether general cognitive…

Purpose: Aims of this research were (a) to investigate higher order linguistic and cognitive skills of Italian children with cochlear implants (CIs); (b) to correlate them with the comprehension of irony, which has never been systematically studied in this population; and (c) to identify the factors that facilitate the development of this…

During narration, speakers constantly choose appropriate referential forms (nominals or pronominals). Children may engage in this reference marking differently than adults. Discourse- or listener-oriented approaches make different predictions about referential behaviour in cognitively demanding situations: the first predicts a higher number of…

Although numerous studies show that intelligence, measured by various tests, is a significant predictor of school achievement, this cognitive variable can only explain about 50% of the variance. It is also known that communicative language ability represents an important basis for learning subject content in the early period of formal education.…

Current models of the affinity between syntax and vocabulary are complex and recognize the contribution of bootstrapping and computational processes. To date, the mutual facilitation between these two constructs over time has not been studied in second language (L2) school children. The present study investigated longitudinally the direction and…

Purpose: This study examined whether monolingual German-speaking preschool children with developmental language disorder (DLD) were facilitated by the presence of case-marking cues in their interpretation of German subject and object "welcher" ("which")-questions, as reported for their typically developing peers. We also…

The purpose of this study was to explore pre-readers' comprehension of a story with competing character goals. Fifty-eight children in three age groups (2½-3 years; 3-4 years; and 4-5 years) were read a story in which the protagonist's goal was unstated and conflicted with the goal of the secondary character. Understanding of explicit story…

Purpose: This study compares online word recognition and prediction in preschoolers with (a suspicion of) a developmental language disorder (DLD) and typically developing (TD) controls. Furthermore, it investigates correlations between these measures and the link between online and off-line language scores in the DLD group. Method: Using the…

When threatened with ostracism, children attempt to strengthen social relationships by engaging in affiliative behaviors such as imitation. We investigated whether an experience of ostracism influenced the extent to which children imitated a partner's language use. In two experiments, 7- to 12-year-old children either experienced ostracism or did…

This study aims to investigate the linguistic organisation and coherence of personal narratives among children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) to provide insight into their communication skills in everyday contexts. A cohort of 10-year-old Croatian-speaking children diagnosed with DLD (n = 50, M = 10;8) and their gender-matched…

We examined the concurrent relationship between narrative skills (the Renfrew Bus Story Test) and core language measures (vocabulary, grammar and verbal memory) at age 4 and the longitudinal relationship between core language and listening comprehension skills at age 7 in a sample of 215 children using latent variables and structural equation…

The early use of first and second person pronouns has been viewed as a sign of emerging social understanding. However, it may also depend on general language development: pronouns do not appear among the first words children acquire. In addition, some languages conjugate verbs for person, and the inflections may thus show similar relations to…

Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have difficulties acquiring the grammatical rules of their native language. It has been proposed that children's detection of sequential statistical patterns correlates with grammatical proficiency and hence that a deficit in the detection of these regularities may underlie the difficulties with…

This article examines factors that promote active multilingualism. For this purpose, the "Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test" was used with 48 children. Their results were linked to a parental questionnaire designed to evaluate the children's linguistic input in their immediate environment. The study shows that, besides a minimum amount of…