The McCaig article appears in this issue, pp. 612-18. (RD)

Reviews research on contributions of the child's environment to the development of syntax and semantics. Current theoretical proposals for internal and external constraints are discussed, and the implications of the research for the theoretical descriptions of the child's contribution to development are considered. (RH)

Examines children's errors in interpreting 'ask' as 'tell' in the framework of pragmatic development. Results indicate that if the children do not know the information, they relay the question, i.e., 'ask.' If they do know the answer, they supply it, i.e., 'tell.' (EKN)

Evidence from the study indicated that the hearing impaired develop syntactic patterns, constructions, and processing abilities for language that differ from those used by the hearing but that semantic patterns and processing abilities of the hearing impaired are similar to those of the hearing. (Author/SB)

Obstacles confronting deaf students in language development are considered. American Sign Language is distinguished from English in terms of grammar, inflection and syntax, and context. The impact of deafness on language acquisition and cognitive development is examined. The importance of auditory feedback and verbal reinforcement is emphasized.…

The syntactic nonconversational features of monologue speech were analyzed in nine normal Ss (ages 2 and 3 years), three at each of R.Brown's three language developmental stages. (Author/PHR)

This paper discusses C. Chomsky's 1969 paper on children's syntactic development and the subsequent studies made to test her findings. Later studies indicate that Chomsky's results were not clearly differentiated, and a slight alteration in procedure changes results significantly. (CHK)

Four- to 10-year olds viewed pictures in which all or some individuals pictured were doing something to all or some objects pictured. Children indicated which sentences, using "all" or "each" to modify the subject or object, applied to the pictures. In choosing the applicable sentence, children showed little difficulty with…

Determined the degree to which a sample of one child's creative utterances related to utterances that the child previously produced. Utterances were intelligible, multi-word utterances produced by the child in a single hour of interaction with her mother. Results suggest the high degree of creativity in early English child language could be…

Investigated the use of complex syntax in narrative language samples of older children and adolescents with Down syndrome and a group of typically developing children matched on mean length of utterance. Findings indicate that syntactic development in individuals with Down Syndrome continues into late adolescence and is not limited to simple…

Reviews research concerning language acquisition in infants, particularly the acquisition of syntax. Topics of discussion include the problem of language acquisition, theories of language acquisition, and the progression from competing hypotheses to mutually reinforcing theories. (RJC)

When 16 parents' and 13 nonparents' conversations with children were examined for evidence of adults' differential responses to children's syntactic, phonological, and semantic errors, results indicated that adults tended to respond differentially to children's language mistakes, with parents showing greater sensitivity than non-parents. (RH)