This study examined differences in literate language use in spoken narratives of 104 children with and 52 children without language impairment across four age levels (6-10). Group membership main effects were statistically significant for conjunctions and elaborated noun phrases with effect sizes ranging from small to moderate. No statistically…

A significant multivariate difference was found between the oral language performance of 44 children labeled reading disabled in the second, fourth, and sixth grades and 59 normally reading children in the same grade. (Author/PHR)

This study examined changes in the complex syntax production of 85 African American preschoolers and the role of child (gender, age, African American English) and family (home environment) factors. Age, gender, and home environment effects were found for the amount of complex language used. African American English was not related to amount of…

Three expressive writing tasks from the 1974 national assessment of writing are summarized and discussed in this report. Results indicated that for a majority of students, first-draft expressive writing is unstructured and lacking in coherence. The tendency to integrate feelings and to organize them in coherent expressions develops between the…

This study examines ways in which children verbalize emotional experiences at successive age levels. Four groups of 16 boys and girls each drawn from the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth grades of a middle class private school in New York City were asked to describe happiness, sadness, love, anger, and fear. Raw protocols were scored according to…