Language training for the non-verbal or language delayed child should utilize feedback to reinforce correct responses and should closely follow the syntactical development of normal children. The two basic areas of language training are receptive and expressive. Receptive language training includes attending and responding, following single phase…

Description of a research project testing the hypothesis that at a given level of language learning the same kinds of errors are made by native and non-native speakers. Conclusions are drawn from the analysis of errors made by native French children and non-French speaking children. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

A study of data on Japanese children shows that the development of verbs occurs at the same time as the development of nouns and may even precede it. The subjects for the study were two children who were learning Japanese as their first language. Four speech samples, taken between the ages of 22 and 28 months, were audiotaped and supplemented by…

The verbal behavior of three children was sampled. The samples were analyzed to obtain a picture of three stages of the children's language development, specifically the interrogative structures. Each stage was about 4- or 5-months long, starting at the 18th to 28th month, depending upon the child's level of linguistic ability. The interrogative…

This paper reports on a case study of a Cantonese-speaking child age 2 and considers the implication of tone acquisition for tone studies in general, and Cantonese tonology in particular. (NCR)

In testing kindergartners and first graders in their comprehension of the words "before" and "after," it was found that when temporal terms are acquired, they are first used as prepositions and then as subordinating conjunctions. (Author/NCR)

This experiment used two groups of preschoolers and one group of young grade-schoolers to test for their comprehension of presuppositions and negation in complex syntax. (NCR)

Examination of a two-year-old's early determiner-noun combinations suggested that early article use can be distributed across a variety of nouns, and that such usage does not seem appropriately characterized as a pattern of limited semantic scope. (CB)

Command of transitivity permutations in Hebrew, where a change in verb-argument syntax entails a change in verb morphology, were examined in 30 children aged 2, 3, and 8. Findings have implications for the development of derivational morphology, item-based versus class-based learning, and the impact of lexical productivity and language-particular…

Research is being conducted to determine the factors behind linguistic retardation in children. A first question raised was whether the linguistic system of the deviant child is qualitatively different from that of a normal child. A matching-up of deviant and normal children according to linguistic level suggests that the onset of base syntax may…

This paper studies aspects of the conceptual basis for language acquisition, with a focus on the perceptual-cognitive skills used to assign meanings to words. A first assumption is that the correspondence between adult and child perceptual features allows for early communication. Apparently, in the first year, naming is characterized by…

Comprehension of the quantifiers "some" and "all" was studied with 202 children, three to nine years old. Thirty-two quantifier sentences dealing with descriptions of circles and squares were presented to the children. Wooden objects were presented to some children to see if results were affected by the choice of abstract objects, but no…

From the standpoint of transformational grammar, this experimental work evaluates the extent to which children choose or fail to generalize their rules for the placement of the negative particles "not" and "n't." The subjects were eight three- and four-year-olds of middle-class background who had been producing sentences with…

A study was undertaken to determine whether children in early periods of language development use stress with any regular patterns, and if so, on what the patterns are based. The subjects were five children aged 21-29 months, MLU between 1.3 and 2.4. Tape recordings were made during play sessions with each child. Two-word utterances that could be…

Universal trends and individual variations in the language development process of the child are described and their relationships to beginning reading instruction are discussed. Child language begins with single word utterances to name things or to express needs and feelings. With a two-word utterance, the child can describe relationships more…