Vulnerability of morphosyntactic production, including grammatical aspect, has been identified in at least some children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exposed to typologically different languages. However, Tovar et al. (2015) found strengths in comprehending grammatical aspect in English-exposed children with ASD, suggesting that the…

Metaphor development in conjunction with verbal intelligence and linguistic competence in middle childhood and at the transition to early adolescence was investigated. 298 individuals between seven and ten years (chronological age) who attended grades two-four (mental age) were tested for metaphor processing by the Metaphoric Triads Task, for…

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 whether language play could affect primary school children's awareness of their syntax. (MP)

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)

The present research focused upon responses of three- and four-year old children to communicative demands posed in four common kinds of question situations. There were also manipulations of the object about which the question was asked, to test dependence of young children upon the presence of such objects. Children's responses were scored for two…

Three studies assessed children's knowledge of the wh question modal auxiliary placement rule by asking the children to imitate (and in Study 3 judge) grammatical and ungrammatical model wh questions. (Author/MP)

Examines one aspect of communicative competence: the recognition of linguistic correlates of sex roles. Acquisition occurred according to 2 patterns: (1) increasing approximation to adult norms, and (2) rule learning and rule differentiation. Timing of these developmental sequences is discussed. (GO)

Investigates expression of part-whole semantic relation by children 3 to 12 years old and indicates that older children prefer its use significantly more often. The part-whole semantic relation was also observed to take several linguistic forms, such as partitive, spatial, and possessive. Age, experimental task format, or type of experimental…

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.…

The hypothesized ability of adult native speakers to understand linguistic ambiguity was tested. An approach developed to determine linguistic competence tested the ability of 90 participants in individual interviews to interpret sentences having the potential for multiple interpretations. The hypothesis was not supported by the data. A hierarchy…