Bilingualism has been associated with a range of cognitive and language-related advantages, including the recognition that words can have different labels across languages. However, most previous research has failed to consider heterogeneity in the linguistic environments of children categorized as monolingual. Our study assessed the influence of…

Research Findings: Mental state verbs (MSV), a component of literate and academic language, may facilitate vocabulary growth, as they relate to metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness as well as decontextualized talk, all of which have been associated with vocabulary growth. In this study, we examined teacher MSV use in group content…

We examined the relations between teachers' use of comments during book reading sessions in preschool classrooms and the vocabulary growth of children with low and moderately low language ability. Using data from a larger randomized controlled trial, we analyzed comments defined as utterances that give, explain, expand, or define. Comments were…

Purpose: People with high-functioning autism (HFA) have qualitative differences in facial expression and prosody production, which are rarely systematically quantified. The authors' goals were to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze prosody and facial expression productions in children and adolescents with HFA. Method: Participants were 22…

This case study examines one Honduran immigrant family's community of practice during home literacy events. Data include field notes and audio and video recordings from six weeks of in-home observations. Coding and discourse analysis are used to analyse talk-in-interaction in order to understand how the family engages in literacy events. Family…

Research Findings: In order to identify the active ingredients in an effective professional development intervention focused on enhancing preschool vocabulary instruction, this study examines the frequency with which teachers and children discussed theme-related vocabulary words during shared book reading. Head Start teachers received 1 year of…

In this study, we examined the longitudinal relations between frequency and features of reading experiences within the preschool classroom to children's language and literacy outcomes in kindergarten and 1st grade. "Frequency" refers to the number of shared reading sessions conducted each week as measured by teachers' written reading…

This research reports a two-phase descriptive study of young children's engagement with ebooks conducted in Head Start classrooms. Phase 1 focused on the development of a typology as an analytic framework for observing engagement with ebooks in different formats (shared book; independent book browsing) and across devices (stationary touch screen;…