Investigated the ability of six children at ages 24, 26, 28, 30, 33, and 36 months to understand the topic of talk not addressed to them. Analyzed children's intrusions into conversations between their mothers and older siblings. Results indicated that intrusions formed a considerable proportion of children's talk. (RJC)

Examines the abilities of 50 children (10 each at ages 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 years) to produce tag questions. Of particular interest was the determination of whether or not constituents of a correct tag are acquired at different ages. (MP)

Subjects between 8 and 20 years of age were tested for competence on an exception to a grammatical rule, the minimal distance rule. (Authors)

Results imply that in early childhood education the language of test instructions and reading programs could be better geared to the child's linguistic competence. (Author)

Study offers some evidence which bears on the amount of influence of the environment upon linguistic capacity. (Author)

Studied the development of speech act comprehension in 36 retarded and 36 nonretarded children at the developmental ages of five, seven, and nine years. Retarded and nonretarded individuals followed the answer obviousness rule and used the contextual and linguistic clues available to respond to yes-no interrogative sentences. (RJC)

Reports three experiments which examined preschool, first-grade, and third-grade children's understanding of metaphorical language. Subjects acted out short stories which ended in metaphorical sentences by using toys. Predictability of the story endings and the complexity of the metaphorical sentences are found to affect metaphor comprehension.…