Limited access to spoken and signed language is a worldwide phenomenon affecting deaf children. Language delay caused by impeded language acquisition has negative cascading effects on deaf children's learning and development. In the event of stymied language development, deaf students exhibit highly errored writing and commit errors unseen in the…

The authors identify 2 major types of statistical data from which semantic representations can be learned. These are denoted as "experiential data" and "distributional data". Experiential data are derived by way of experience with the physical world and comprise the sensory-motor data obtained through sense receptors. Distributional data, by…

The article reports the development of the Structural Analysis of Written Language (SAWL), an instrument designed for use by classroom teachers in objectively documenting the ability of children to write in English. The SAWL allows teachers to use T-unit analysis to quantitatively assess language improvement regardless of whether the student…

Over 2000 samples of the writing of eleven to eighteen year olds were analyzed as part of an attempt to formulate and validate a system for categorizing student writing. The system that resulted has two dimensions: the function served by the piece of writing and the audience to which it is addressed. Significant associations were found between the…

A syntactic density instrument was devised to determine how children use specific syntactic structures in their oral and written language. (JH)

The need for an objective index of language development has long been recognized, and various means of measuring language growth have been proposed. This study compares two of the indexes that have recently been devised for measuring language growth. Its specific purposes are (1) to examine the correlation between mean T-unit length and syntactic…

A language assessment procedure was used with spontaneous spoken and written language samples of 13 orally trained children with hearing loss in integrated classrooms in two Israeli elementary schools. Results revealed significant differences between spoken and written language samples of these children in various correct syntactic structures,…

This investigation sought to learn about the oral and written language behavior of students from kindergarten age through grade 7, and to determine the validity of different analytic techniques for measuring children's development in control of syntax. Language samples were collected from 180 children (grades K-3, 5, and 7) by having the children…

Discusses three studies: (1) the effectiveness of semantic analyses of written narratives of students with hearing losses in determining language ability; (2) written-language characteristics of writers matched by reading abilities alone and matched by reading ability and age; and (3) written-language characteristics of writers with hearing…