A strong predictor of children's language is performance on non-word repetition (NWR) tasks. However, the basis of this relationship remains unknown. Some suggest that NWR tasks measure phonological working memory, which then affects language growth. Others argue that children's knowledge of language/language experience affects NWR performance. A…

This study investigated first (L1) and second (L2) language acquisition in two age-matched groups of 2- to 6-year-old kindergarten children over the course of 2.5 years. The immersion group participated in a partial English immersion program whereas the conventional instruction group received a conventional L2 course (30 minutes per week); the…

A growing research line documents significant bivariate correlations between individual measures of speech perception gathered in infancy and concurrent or later vocabulary size. One interpretation of this correlation is that it reflects language specificity: Both speech perception tasks and the development of the vocabulary recruit the…

In this article we report on early rhythmic discrimination performance of children who participated in a longitudinal study following children from birth to their 6th year of life. Thirty-four children including 8 children with a family risk for developmental language impairment were tested on the discrimination of trochaic and iambic disyllabic…

This study investigated the relationship of first language (L1) skills in elementary school and second language (L2) learning in high school. Students classified as high-, average-, and low-proficiency L2 learners were compared on L1 achievement measures of reading, spelling, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and listening comprehension…

Speech samples were elicited by means of the Bilingual Syntax Measure from eleven children ages 27-48 months, covering a wide span of linguistic development. Presence or absence of eleven functors was scored in obligatory occasions and an acquisition sequence determined using three methods of speech analysis. (CHK)

This study of the speech of a five-year-old Japanese girl learning English focused on the use of prefabricated routines where items are memorized as wholes. The forms of the copula, "do you" questions and embedded "how to" questions were examined. (AG)

A model of speech perception and production is suggested here which attempts to account for different rates of acquisition of perceptual and productive skill in the second language without assuming the existence of two separate second language grammars. (Author/KM)

It is argued here that childhood phonological errors systematically simplify the child's inventory of phonetic elements and strings. (Author/KM)

Compares the developmental patterns in the acquisition of negation by five French Creole-speaking and four Creole English-speaking Saint Lucian children ages five and six. Similar patterns of development and error types were found for both groups, but the French Creole speakers remained at a less advanced stage than did the Creole English speakers…