This paper investigates English-speaking children's acquisition of raising constructions (e.g. "John seems to Mary to be happy") and fnds an asymmetric effect of NP type on their comprehension: an improvement in performance is observed when a lexical NP is raised across a pronominal experiencer (e.g. "John seems to her to be…

The research presented here uses theoretical constructs of formal syntax to account for performance data in agreement production. The phenomenon examined is object interference in French, i.e., incorrect agreement of the verb with the object. In the first experiment, interference is shown to occur in object relative clauses despite the absence of…

This review explores challenges and barriers to parent-child interaction which leads to language development in the first 3 years of the child's life. Seven databases yielded 1,750 hits, reduced to 49 evidence-based studies, many of which still had methodological imperfections. Evidence was quite strong in relation to socio-economic status,…

Provides an overview of current research on grammatical, phonological, semantic, and pragmatic development in African American English child language, as opposed to adult or adolescent language, and discusses the implications of these findings for professionals involved in second-dialect instruction, speech-language assessment, or intervention…

This book provides a synthesis of research findings in normal language development as well as a practical approach to the evaluation and treatment of children with language disorders. Its 21 chapters are divided into six topical sections: language description, normal language development, deviant language development, goals of language learning…

This paper discusses four kinds of reasons for studying child language. The first of the four, biological reasons, includes the desire to understand our own species and its place among other living things in the universe. The common human faculty for communication, the variability in language building, and the similarity of human communication to…

Among the strategies used by the adult to engage the child in a linguistic interaction, those involving questioning occupy a central position. One of the parameters usually taken into account to differentiate the type of questions directed to the child is the opposition between closed (i.e., yes/no) and open-ended questions. The relevance of that…

Selected studies that examine social interaction variables which affect the language young children use in social play are reviewed. Interaction variables discussed in major sections of the paper are (1) the nature of social play; (2) egocentrism and its impact on verbal communication; (3) language as a functional behavior; (4) adaptation of…

In this article, we consider the theoretical debates and frameworks that have shaped research on language development and intervention in persons with mental retardation over the past four decades. Our starting point is the nativist theory, which has been espoused most forcefully by Chomsky. We also consider more recent alternatives to the…

This study compared different strategies (questions, comments, reformulations, and repetitions) used by an adult in dialogue with 17 language impaired and 24 control preschool children. Two types of co-production (a tale and a personal account) were analyzed. The stability of the distribution of the various strategies in both situations is seen as…

These articles on scaffolding in language and speech pathology/therapy are included in this issue: "Strategies d'etayage avec des enfants disphasiques: sont-elles specifiques?" ("Scaffolding Strategies for Dysphasic Children: Are They Specific?") (Genevieve de Weck); "Comparaison des strategies discursives d'etayage dans un conte et un recit…