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…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relations among children's symbolic functioning at 15 months, joint attention at 24 months, expressive communication at 24 and 36 months, and executive functioning at 36 months. With the sample from rural areas in the United States collected by the Family Life Project (N = 1,008), a longitudinal data…

Purpose: The study explored longitudinally the course of vocabulary and general language development in a group of infants with Down syndrome (DS) compared to a group of typically developing (TD) infants matched on nonverbal mental ability (NVMA). Method: We compared the vocabulary and general language trajectories of the two groups in two ways:…

Purpose: Both theoretical models of infant language acquisition and empirical studies posit important roles for attention to speech in early language development. However, deaf infants with cochlear implants (CIs) show reduced attention to speech as compared with their peers with normal hearing (NH; Horn, Davis, Pisoni, & Miyamoto, 2005;…

Purpose: Early auditory experiences are fundamental in infant language acquisition. Research consistently demonstrates the benefits of early intervention (i.e., hearing aids) to language outcomes in children who are deaf and hard of hearing. The nature of these benefits and their relation with prefitting development are, however, not well…

We sought to determine whether pediatric primary care interventions targeting positive parenting among low socioeconomic status mothers resulted in reduced referrals to the New York City Early Intervention Program (NYC-EIP). Participants in Building Blocks (BB) and the Video Interaction Project (VIP) were linked with the NYC-EIP administrative…

Object construction involves organizing multiple objects into a unified structure (e.g., stacking blocks into a tower) and may provide infants with unique spatial information. Because object construction entails placing objects in spatial locations relative to one another, infants can acquire information about spatial relations during construction…

Data-driven decision making (DDDM) helps educators identify children not responding to intervention, individualize instruction, and monitor response to intervention in multitiered systems of support (MTSS). More prevalent in K-12 special education, MTSS practices are emerging in early childhood. In previous reports, we described the Making Online…

Data-driven decision making (DDDM) helps educators identify children not responding to intervention, individualize instruction, and monitor response to intervention in multitiered systems of support (MTSS). More prevalent in K-12 special education, MTSS practices are emerging in early childhood. In previous reports, we described the Making Online…

Both early childhood maternal language input and the quality of classroom instruction in elementary school have been shown to be important environmental supports in predicting children's literacy skill development. However, no studies have simultaneously examined these two environmental supports in relation to children's early language skills and…

The purpose of this study was to understand vocabulary characteristics in toddlers who are late talkers (LT) as compared with age-matched (AM) and vocabulary-matched (VM) peers. The semantic categories (e.g., animals, foods, toys) and the percentage of nouns, verbs, and closed-class words in the vocabularies of 36 toddlers (12 LT, 12 AM, 12 VM)…

This study analyzed spontaneous language samples of three-year-olds with a history of expressive language delay (late talkers) and age-matched controls using Dore's Conversational Acts analysis (1978) and Mean Length of Utterance (MLU; Brown, 1973). Differences were observed between groups in utterances classified as organizational device and…

Joint attention, or the shared focus of attention between objects or events and a social partner, is a crucial milestone in the development of social communication and a notable area of deficit in children with autism spectrum disorder. While valid parent-report screening measures of social communication are available, the majority of these…

Findings are presented from the first randomized control trial of the effects of encouraging symbolic gesture (or "baby sign") on infant language, following 40 infants from age 8 months to 20 months. Half of the mothers were trained to model a target set of gestures to their infants. Frequent measures were taken of infant language…

The effects of high- versus low-quality child care during 2 developmental periods (infant-toddlerhood and preschool) were examined using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. Propensity score matching was used to account for differences in families who used different combinations of child…