Researchers have demonstrated that dialogue-based intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) can be effective in assisting students in learning. However, little research has attempted to explore the necessity of equipping dialogue-based ITS with one of the most important capabilities of human tutors, that is, maintaining polite interactions with students,…

Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate whether Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) demonstrated early lexical composition similar to their hearing peers who were at the same vocabulary level and the extent to which children with CIs were sensitive to linguistic and conceptual properties when developing early lexicon.…

Purpose: Elementary-age dual language learners (DLLs) from Spanish-speaking homes in the United States are often characterized as at risk for low vocabulary in both Spanish and English. This longitudinal study examined conceptually scored receptive and expressive vocabulary development among DLLs from Spanish-speaking, low-income homes and…

This study examined accuracy on syllable-final (coda) consonants in newly-learned English-like nonwords to determine whether school-aged bilingual children may be more vulnerable to making errors on English-only codas than their monolingual, English-speaking peers, even at a stage in development when phonological accuracy in productions of…

Multi-word expressions play an important role in second language acquisition, comprehension, and production. Therefore, there is great need for a list of frequent, useful multi-word expressions in language teaching classrooms. Despite multiple attempts at defining multi-word sequences, researchers and teaching experts are divided over the nature…

This study characterized early language abilities in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (n = 257) using multiple measures of language development, compared to toddlers with non-spectrum developmental delay (DD, n = 69). Findings indicated moderate to high degrees of agreement among three assessment measures (one parent report and two direct…

Purpose: This study was aimed at determining the role of prosody and situational context in children's understanding of expressive utterances. Which one of these 2 cues will help children grasp the speaker's intention? Do children exhibit a "contextual bias" whereby they ignore prosody, such as the "lexical bias" found in other studies (M. Friend…

Based on the belief that learning is deeper in meaningful contexts, Wilhelm makes a case for creating (authentically or simulated in the classroom) specific contexts that lead students into new identities, new perspectives, and new vocabulary. This is effectively accomplished by framing instructional units or curricular topics as inquiry,…

Presents an "expose" of academic jargon that often confuses educators and other readers. The terms are humorously defined to reveal the money and status struggles that protect academics from "unhealthy preoccupation" with teaching and scholarship. (CJH)

The article summarized findings on the oral output of 40 gifted elementary school children who voluntarily attended language workshop sessions. Students were offered a wide range of oral expression, yet they exhibited haphazard and inconsistent oral abilities. Recommendations are made to improve the linguistic abilities of gifted children. (CL)

This study compared the relative use by four male and four female youth with mental retardation of linguistic (grammatical) devices identified as characteristic of typical female speech (qualifying markers, question styles, and politeness terms). Females produced significantly more qualifying markers than did males, although neither question style…

This article discusses the origin and history of three Spanish idioms: "Aqui hay gato encerrado,""Seguir en sus trece," and "La carabina de Ambrosio." (Text is in Spanish.) (CLK)

Purpose: Language and speech are difficult to assess in newly arrived internationally adopted children. The purpose of this study was to determine if assessments completed when toddlers were first adopted could predict language outcomes at age 2. Local norms were used to develop early intervention guidelines that were evaluated against age 2…

The study compared the deviant, repetitive language of 33 males (9 with Down syndrome, 12 with fragile X syndrome, and 12 with autism). Results indicated that males with fragile X syndrome manifest deviant, repetitive language that is distinct from males with either Down syndrome or autism. (DB)

In this study, six percent of a 2-year-old child's spontaneous utterances in six 3-hour samples were identified as one of three expressive metalinguistic utterance types: interrogatives, hypothesis tests, and evocative utterances. Evocative utterances were used most frequently. The subject used the strategies to seek nouns 78 percent of the time.…