The study compared several discourse characteristics of six linguistically normal and six language-disordered kindergarten children. While neither the linguistically normal nor the language-disordered groups had achieved an adult level of competence, normal children were much more aware of the interactive nature of discourse than…

The article discusses several linguistic and nonlinguistic teaching strategies to foster language acquisition and increase spontaneous language in preschool children with language delays. Techniques include having the child complete unfinished sentences and intentionally violating an expected routine to elicit the child's language. (DB)

Topic continuing and nontopic continuing utterances produced by three productively language-disordered preschoolers were analyzed. Results suggested that Ss produced a proportion of adjacent utterances comparable to proportions previously reported for children with normal production language skills and that they relied on an imitation strategy to…

As a group, the language impaired children demonstrated deficits in comprehension when compared to the normal language children. However, both groups scored near the ceiling on several tests, and on most tests that did differentiate the two groups, the mean scores of both groups were above the norms. (Author)

The article considers how three types of language skills (receptive, functional expressive, and descriptive expressive) can be integrated into typical gross and fine motor activities for language delayed preschoolers. (Author/CL)

The study compared the use of language functions and language interactions in a structured setting with normal and language-disordered preschoolers. Language disordered children performed less appropriately on the average across all measures and the difference between groups was greater at younger ages. (Author/DB)

The relationship between interactive play and the frequency of related responding to comments was investigated within the dyadic interactions between a language impaired 4-year-old and 4 normal language users. While the frequency of related responses was variable for the subject, the frequencies of related responses of normal children were…

Language comprehension performance on the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language (TACL) was investigated using three modes of test administration with 24 four-year-old children representing various categories of cognitive tempo. Results indicated that all Ss had similar expressive language abilities. (Author/SB)

Four developmentally delayed preschoolers were taught action-object responses in receptive and expressive language modalities, using matrix-training procedures. Acquisition of a word combination rule was facilitated by the use of familiar lexical items, whereas subsequent acquisition of new lexical knowledge was enhanced by couching training in a…

When assessed for speech/language development, 31 children (age 1-12) fitted with endotracheal tubes for more than 3 months beginning by age 13 months showed overall language functioning within normal limits and commensurate with cognitive ability. However, a pattern of expressive language disability was noted in the oldest group. (Author/JDD)

A modeling procedure involving dynamic interactions was used to train three language-delayed preschool children to emit five-element syntactic responses. A single-subject multiple baseline design using within- and across-subject replication was employed to study the acquisition of expanded "agent-action-object" sentences and the…

The Denver Developmental Screening Test (DDST) and an expressive language measure were administered to 114 children (aged 24 to 74 months) suspected of developmental difficulties. The DDST did not identify the majority of children who failed the expressive language screening, even after cutoff scores were made more rigorous. (Author/JDD)

Examines the impact of specific language delay (LD) on peer interaction in preschool children. Interaction between three groups of dyads (normals and normals; normals and LD children; and between LD children) were studied. Normal children were more likely to initiate interaction with non-responsive partners and to dominate the interaction.…

Comparison of production and comprehension methods in teaching six 3-year-old language disordered children the relationship between semantic role and word order indicated the production method (the children produced sentences contrasting word order and meaning) was more effective than the comprehension method (the children responded to contrasting…