Poverty of the stimulus has been at the heart of ferocious and tear-filled debates at the nexus of psychology, linguistics, and philosophy for decades. This review is intended as a guide for readers without a formal linguistics or philosophy background, focusing on what poverty of the stimulus is and how it's been interpreted, which is…

Teachers and parents intuitively judge the 'level' of the child and the 'level' of the text and try to match them; they know that overestimation or underestimation of either will be met with restlessness or boredom. In this way, they have an empirical understanding of Vygotsky's ZPD--the zone of proximal development he envisioned as measuring the…

The cross-overs between monolingual-bilingual and typically atypically developing children are a goldmine for research on language development. The four permutations of language exposure and language abilities create "natural experimental conditions" for investigating the nature of the language capacity and how this is shaped by input in typical…

This investigation explored the conversational practices and conversational rule-conformity of children aged four, six, and eight. Procedures included observation of the conversational behavior of children in classroom interaction among peers and a controlled laboratory investigation of the conversations of 18 children, of varying age levels, who…

Through discussion and illustrative events, an evolving segment of communication is described during the course of transition of one child's total communication system from the sensorimotor or gestural level at 12 months into the level of use of the adult words "more" and "mine," and associated utterances, at 24 months. (Author/RM)

A research project was aimed at measuring the relationship between infant vocalizations and linguistic development and determining the feasibility of using infant vocalizations as a predictor of later psychological and intellectual status. However, a method was needed to analyze the vocalizations of infants. This report describes a method used to…

The role that talk plays in socialization, social development, and possibly cognitive development is described. Research on talk is categorized as follows: studies that consider talk as a tool for investigation; studies that focus on development of grammar or language acquisition; and studies that fall between those extremes. (LB)

Presents findings of ethnographic research on children's talk and behavior, specifically routines in spontaneous peer play and verbal routines in structured activities. Concludes that instructional strategies should incorporate some of the features of children's play routines and peer culture. (SRT)

Social cognition refers to that ability which makes it possible for one to infer another's covert, inner psychological experiences and to interact with that individual accordingly (Shantz 1975; Flavell 1977). Piaget (1926) maintains that the ability to decenter socially and to take into account the perspective of another develops gradually as the…

Describes ERIC resources that present research on children's language usage and development and that suggest activities for the promotion of language development. (ET)

This paper reviews the research on speech perception and reassesses the contribution of innate capacities versus external stimulation in conjunction with age in first- and second-language acquisition. A developmental model of speech perception is then discussed in relation to neonatal auditory perception. (Contains 86 references.) (MDM)

Up to the present, no studies have been done in the area of child language in Mexico. The Center of Linguistic and Literary Studies of the Colegio de Mexico carried out an empirical investigation of the language of six- to seven-year-old Mexican children. This paper presents, in preliminary form, some partial results of the investigation,…

The intent of this study was to determine the extent to which preschool children's speech to self, their private speech, was differentiated from their social speech. Ten randomly chosen preschool children, six boys and four girls with a median age of 56 months, were observed in conditions supportive of oral communication (free play), and in…

The development of the Conversational Unit (CU) was investigated in a semilongitudinal study of three mother/son dyads in nonstructured spontaneous communication. The children were 19 to 23 months old at the start of the investigation. Sound films were recorded monthly during bathing and feeding times. After four months, verbal and nonverbal…

Previous research has shown how macro-structures can affect children's verbalizations. This study focuses on whether conversational contexts of forms are learned along with syntax, on what makes syntax, and on how to predict speech. Transcripts of videotapes of young children provided a matrix of function or act against actual utterance, wherein…