Several studies provide considerable insight into the role that frequency plays in language development. However, no study has investigated the direct relationship between frequency and grammatical acquisition in children with specific language impairment (SLI). In this study, we focus specifically on the influence of the frequency of functional…

How to help babies and young children right from birth to become competent in talking as well as emergent literacy is illustrated by research findings as well as with specific clinical stories. Both kinds of knowledge can serve to galvanize parents and teachers to increase awareness of infant and preschool language development and the crucial role…

Using the 1970 British Cohort Study, this study examines factors promoting positive language development and subsequent successful education and employment transitions among children showing early receptive language problems (age 5). We find that 61 per cent of children with early receptive language problems develop into competent readers by age…

The Test of Language Development was administered to a purposive sample of early elementary learning disabled students in an effort to analyze their language performance. Statistically significant differences were indexed between receptive and expressive language skills for this sample. (Author)

Children with language learning problems (N=151) and normally learning children (N=143) were tested on fine-grained auditory discrimination tasks that required responding to small acoustic differences. Performance on the auditory tasks was highly correlated with group placement suggesting that fine-grained auditory discrimination makes a major…

A preference procedure which makes possible a wide range of fine grammatical contrasts is proposed as an alternative to the traditional comprehension testing procedure. (GW)

A program was developed to increase the receptive and expressive language skills of 24 secondary learning-disabled students. Program units covered word sorting, sight-word vocabulary, key-word reading, reading rate, reading comprehension, listening, and writing. (Author/SW)

Current thinking about language, learning, and literacy are discussed, focusing on such themes as: literacy as a part of language learning, understanding text and written language modes, the "metas" in language and cognition, and maintaining a clinical focus in classroom contexts and beyond. Four researcher-clinicians offer observations about…

Presented primarily for use with educable mentally retarded and learning disabled children are approximately 100 activities for language development through the auditory channel. Activities are grouped under the following three areas: receptive skills (auditory decoding, auditory memory, and auditory discrimination); expressive skills (auditory…

A review of the research on learning-disabled students suggests that these students often exhibit language deficits that are not readily obvious. These language deficits create problems in understanding social interactions and written and oral directions as well as problems in expressing ideas both orally and in written form. The term language…

This final report summarizes the activities and findings of a research project which developed a model program for preschoolers "at risk in language." A total of 22 children, including 17 children "at risk" and 5 peers, participated in the program; the children served by the project showed increased facility with language in…