Children between the ages of 6 and 11 learn to understand and use the relative pronouns "qui" and "que." The closer the subordinate clause is to favorite word order, the easier it is for the child. (MLA)

Language performance at syntactic, semantic, orthographic, and discourse levels was measured for 12 learning disabled third graders, 15 normally achieving third graders, and 11 normally achieving first graders. Results indicated significant overall differences between learning disabled and normally achieving Ss, but not between the learning…

Analysis of videotaped interaction of 20 hearing impaired preschoolers showed that Ss were acquiring language using the same semantic categories, syntactic forms, and functional uses as normally developing children but at later chronological ages. All of the hearing-impaired children were developing a rule system consistent with patterns of normal…

The discussion of older language disordered children's syntactic development focuses on an increase in T-units (minimal terminal units) and an expansion of types of cohesion (ways in which children tie their utterance structures together). Implications for assessment and treatment are drawn. (CL)

A review of The Acquisition of Language: The Study of Developmental Psycholinguistics" (Harper and Row), by David McNeill. (RY)

Results of syntactic and semantic comparisons of 10 retarded children (mean age nine years), 10 normal, and 10 language impaired children matched for MA indicated that retarded children's language abilities were essentially comparable to the normal children without the same linguistic deficiencies as the language impaired children. (Author/CL)

Interactions between phonology and syntax were inspected in continuous speech samples, from 30 speech-delayed children. Results indicated that two-thirds of the Ss displayed evidence of overall syntactic delay, whereas half showed some limitations in use of phonetically complex morphophonemes, their performance in that area being below the level…

Proposes a model for explaining constraints imposed by predicates on selecting arguments appropriate for the predicates. The model has two components, a taxonomic representation of concepts and probabilistic formalization of selectional constraints defined in terms of that taxonomy. Describes four computational experiments testing the model's…

Examined young children's acquisition of wh-questions. Children heard a wh-question and attempted to repeat it; a "talking bear" answered. The same format was used for two intervention sessions for children in a quasicontrol condition. Suggests very little input--if concentrated and varied and presented so the child attends to it and…

Examined use of word order and animacy for interpretation of sentences by typically-developing and language delayed children. Results indicate that typically-developing 2-year-olds use neither cue consistently to interpret sentences; typically-developing 2.5-year-olds used a coalition of word order and animacy cues; and language-delayed…

Reports elicited production and grammaticality judgment data from three experiments on the status of resumptive pronouns in English. Participants were children and adults. Examined children's acquisition of syntax in light of development of linguistic processing systems. (Author/VWL)

Two studies investigated the syntactic bootstrapping abilities of 5- and 7-year-old children with specific language impairment and comparison groups matched for equivalent language level or chronological age. Only typically developing 5-year-olds showed evidence of using syntactic clues. However, continued syntactic growth was seen in all…

This study compared the morphosyntax of French speaking children with specific language impairment to the morphosyntax of English speaking children acquiring a second language (French). Findings indicated that use of morphosyntax by both groups has significant similarities and children in both groups demonstrated optional infinitive effects in…

This study explored the acquisition of regular and irregular past tense in 21 children with specific language impairment. The findings support a morphosyntactic rather than morphophonological learning model, such as the extended optional infinitive model, with regard to the limitations in finiteness marking and for affected children. (Contains…

There is incomplete consensus on the anatomical demarcation of Broca's area in the left inferior frontal gyrus and its functional characterization remains a matter of debate. Exclusive syntactic specialization has been proposed, but is overall inconsistent with the neuroimaging literature. We examined three functional MRI (fMRI) datasets on…