Ostensive definitions of words are ambiguities as to their referent. In a study of infant-mother dyads engaged in looking at picture books, 95 percent of ostensive definitions referred to the whole object depicted rather than parts, attributes, or actions. When parts were named, ambiguity was avoided by naming the part and the whole. (PJM)

The hypothesis explains the early lexical development of children and the predictions of this hypothesis are shown to be consistent with available data on overextension. (Author/NCR)

Phonological development in children is described in terms of four stages; (1) preverbal vocalization and perception (birth to 1;0); (2) phonology of the first 50 words (1;0 to 1;6); (3) phonology of simple morphemes (1;6 to 4;0); and (4) completion of the phonetic inventory (4;0 to 7;0). (CTM)

The first part of this bibliography contains annotations of articles on the acquisition of voice onset time (VOT) as the marker of a phonological contrast, that is, the studies concern children who are already developing a phonological system. The most common questions are the following: (1) When children begin to produce initial stops, how are…

This paper studies aspects of the conceptual basis for language acquisition, with a focus on the perceptual-cognitive skills used to assign meanings to words. A first assumption is that the correspondence between adult and child perceptual features allows for early communication. Apparently, in the first year, naming is characterized by…

A study was conducted to test whether three, four, and five-year-old children would be better able to use either static or dynamic properties for grouping objects, and whether performance under these conditions would be better than when no property was given. One of the two study tasks, the free sort, also used by Rosch et al. (1976), asked…

The role of language in conservation tasks and the development of the concept of conservation of quantity in young children are investigated in this study. A total of 50 children, aged 3.0 to 4.7 years, were divided into three groups according to age with a large number clustered around age 4.0 years. Children were randomly assigned to one of two…

A longitudinal study of three children examined the relation between object permanence and language development. (Author/NCR)

The developmental model of communication growth is often the most appropriate framework for determining intervention goals with handicapped children. An integration of published literature describing the developmental progression of sensory, motor, and social abilities is provided as an intervention framework for developing communicative abilities…

The University of Victoria and the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs sponsored a 4-week prekindergarten, preschool, and orientation program for Indian children living on 4 reserves in the southern region of Vancouver Island. The 3 groups of children served were 4- and 5-year-olds (prekindergarten), 5- and 6-year-olds (preschool), and 7-…

This study proposes that children's phonological behavior at Stage VI of sensorimotor development may show markedly decreased variability compared to children at Stage V. According to Piaget, sensorimotor development during Stage VI is distinguished from preceding stages by the onset of representational ability and ability to form mental…

This curriculum guide provides a variety of activities to develop perceptual skills in young children. Activities in the following areas are provided: (1) motor skills--awareness of self, gross motor, fine motor, orientation in space, eye motor; (2) auditory skills--attention, listening, discrimination, imitation and articulation, auditory…

It is proposed that in studying the development of children's speech, the findings in the data are heavily influenced by what is expected to be found on the basis of our theoretical preconceptions. This phenomenon is actually more widespread than has previously been acknowledged, and our expectations about how children learn language may have to…

A study is undertaken to determine whether the nonlinguistic priority of the agent of an action facilitates the comprehension of word reference. The subjects were twelve male and twelve female infants at the one word stage of language production. The children were presented with three nonsense names (presented as part of a narration of a filmed…

A previous study found that middle-class Hebrew-English bilingual children were characterized by distinctive perceptual strategies and more advanced processing in certain verbal tasks, as compared to similar monolinguals. The present study tested whether similar strategies and response patterns will appear when the children involved are from…