In recent years, the intersection of cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience with regard to deaf individuals has received increasing attention from a variety of academic and educational audiences. Both research and pedagogy have addressed questions about whether deaf children learn in the same ways that hearing children…

Three experiments investigated whether preschoolers attend to actions or object when learning a novel verb. Findings showed that children learning nouns in the context of novel, moving objects attended exclusively to appearances of objects. Children learning verbs attended equally to appearances and motions. With familiar objects, children…

Discusses the inadequacies of the linguistic development theory called cognitive determinism and suggests instead the linguistic input hypothesis. Concludes that it is not either cognitive development or linguistic input that determines linguistic growth, but an interaction between them. (RM)

Presents evidence to support theory that infants learn their language by first determining, independent of language, the meaning which a speaker intends to convey... and by then working out the relationship between the meaning and the expression they heard. (Author)

Discusses the oral language learning processes of children; a paper presented at annual convention of National Council of Teachers of English (59th, Washington, D. C., November 29, 1969). (Author/SW)

An examination of models which have been employed in making predictions about the interference effect is made. It is pointed out that investigators mainly have relied upon the paired-associate model borrowed from classical studies in the field of verbal learning. This basic paradigm, represented as A-B, A-C, A-B, has produced fairly consistent…

This paper explores the questions of how and why children learn names for things. The acquisition of reference is set within a broader discussion of linguistic representation, which defines language as a system functioning in a three-way relationship among the individual language user, the world of experience, and the social community. It is…

THE EXTENT TO WHICH REDUNDANCY OF LANGUAGE AFFECTS THE DIFFICULTY OF LEARNING VERBAL MATERIALS FOR CHILDREN OF SEVERAL AGES WAS STUDIED. SAMPLES OF SPOKEN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATE TO CHILDREN OF FIRST, THIRD, AND FIFTH GRADES AND ADULTS (AS REPRESENTED BY JUNIOR COLLEGE STUDENTS) FROM SIMILAR SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUNDS WERE COLLECTED BY MEANS OF A TAPE…

Examined the extent to which maternal linguistic input enabled children to use syntactic bootstrapping. Studied uses of 25 common verbs in speech of 57 mothers to their 1-year olds and 2-year olds. Found that verbs can be used to create informative syntactic frames, syntactic frames can cue appropriate verb class, and multiple syntactic framing…

Recall lists were presented to 40 black lower class and 40 white middle class children in this experiment. The purpose of the study was to examine a possible explanation of the relatively poor performance of black and lower class children on tasks requiring abstract learning abilities. It was reasoned that the threshold for the production of…

Reviews studies suggesting benefits of block play for literacy development that provides actual reading and writing experiences. Suggests that block play centers can be literacy-enhanced with materials that are authentic, useful, and appropriate, including: thematic books, magazines, architectural blueprints, envelopes, and adding machine tape.…

The symposium on which this report is based was motivated by the belief that scientific understanding of how man learns through language will some day help in the development and use of written instructional materials. The main purpose of the symposium was to take stock of the more promising findings and concepts about verbal learning processes in…

After intensively studying for several years the thinking processes of members of a tribal group in Western Africa, the Kpelle, the authors examine the relation between culture and cognitive development. The following issues are discussed: (1) an analysis of the terms "culture" and "cognition"; (2) an ethnographic description of the Kpelle…