The aim of this pilot study was to explore the feasibility and language outcomes of coaching parents to implement an aided language stimulation intervention using Pragmatic Organisation Dynamic Display (PODD) communication books. Two parent--child dyads, with children aged 4 years 6 months and 4 years 8 months participated in a home-based…

Recent studies indicate the need to investigate the sources of toddlers' understanding of another person's pretense. The present study is a cultural and longitudinal extension of the work of Lillard and Witherington (2004), who claimed that mothers modify their behaviors during pretense and that the some of these behavior modifications help their…

The first of this series of studies on the ability of young children to follow directions was designed to find out which is easier for a preschool child: to follow directions given only by demonstration or given only verbally. Subjects were 108 white, middle class, 4-year-olds enrolled in a nursery school. Each teacher tested the children in her…

The communication of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by a qualitative impairment in verbal and non-verbal communication. In past decades a growing body of descriptive studies has appeared on language and communication problems in ASD. Reviews suggest that the development of formal and semantic aspects is relatively…

Discusses several philosophies of linguistics and semiotics that debate the importance of words and their relationship to signs, language as the primary modeling system, and the historical primacy of verbal versus visual communication. Describes human communication as both language-based and nonverbal, both aspects inviting arbitrary and abstract…

To assess the importance of visual attributes relative to acoustic and semantic attributes in children's encoding, a 64-item recognition test was administered to first- and sixth-grade children. Recognition items were linedrawings of simple objects accompanied by aural labels. By manipulating the picture, label, and referent in various…

As children begin to grasp the basic functions of literacy, they become engaged in meaning-making that alternates between and/or combines oral language, written and printed symbols, drawings, and other formats. This article examines the benefits to children of an integrated approach to literacy, highlighting the Reggio Emilia approach, and offers…

New approaches are needed if educators are to deal successfully with the problem of teaching children to learn to read words well. Interesting questions come to the fore if those who seek solutions to this difficulty regard the reading of words as a subset of the wider problem of reading the class of visual signs in general, which includes (1)…

The fifteen essays collected here are grouped under three sections, each dealing with a different, but related theme. The first section, exploring the relationship of literature to the human being, includes "The Jinnee in the Well Wrought Urn,""A Dialectic of Aural and Objective Correlatives,""Metaphor and the Twinned Vision," and"Voice as Summons…