Purpose: Previously, Lancaster and Camarata (2019) showed that the continuum/spectrum model of the developmental language disorder (DLD) best explained the high heterogeneity of symptoms in children with DLD. We hypothesize that the continuum/spectrum approach can include not only children with DLD but also typically developing (TD) children with…

Across a diverse range of languages, children proceed through similar stages in their production of causal language: their initial verbs lack internal causal structure, followed by a period during which they produce causative overgeneralizations, indicating knowledge of a productive causative rule. We asked in this study whether a child not…

It remains controversial whether children are able to process and integrate specific linguistic cues in their mental model to the same extent as adults. In the present study, a sentence continuation task was employed to determine how Italian speakers (4-, 5-, 6-year-olds and adults) interpret prosodic cues to decide which referent is more salient…

Project ImPACT is a parent-mediated social communication intervention for young children with ASD that was developed in community settings to encourage dissemination. A single-subject, multiple-baseline design was conducted across 8 preschoolers with ASD and their mothers to examine the efficacy of the model for improving parent intervention…

Speech productions of 40 English- and 40 Japanese-speaking children (aged 2-5) were examined and compared with the speech produced by 20 adult speakers (10 speakers per language). Participants were recorded while repeating words that began with "s" and "sh" sounds. Clear language-specific patterns in adults' speech were found,…

Recent work on the acquisition of number words has emphasized the importance of integrating linguistic and developmental perspectives [Musolino, J. (2004). The semantics and acquisition of number words: Integrating linguistic and developmental perspectives. "Cognition 93", 1-41; Papafragou, A., Musolino, J. (2003). Scalar implicatures: Scalar…

The acquisition of German plurals has been the focus of controversy in the last decade. In this paper we claim that degree of productivity (i.e. the capacity of nouns to form potential plurals) plays a key role in determining pace of acquisition. A plural elicitation task was administered to 84 Viennese German-speaking children aged 2;6 to 6;0.…

This study explores the spontaneous acquisition of Italian inflectional morphology by three children. Longitudinal, free speech samples are examined, focusing on the development of the morphological paradigms of Italian verbs, pronouns, and articles. (80 references) (JL)

This paper presents a model of syntax acquisition, whose main points are as follows: Syntax is acquired in an item-based manner; early learning facilitates subsequent learning--as evidenced by the accelerating rate of new verbs entering a given structure; and mastery of syntactic knowledge is typically achieved through practice--as evidenced by…

57 Polish-speaking children aged from 2;4, to 4;8 and 16 adult controls participated in a nonce-word inflection experiment testing their ability to use the genitive, dative and accusative inflections productively. Results show that this ability develops early: the majority of two-year-olds were already productive with all inflections apart from…

A model of early phonotactic and prosodic development in Swedish children is described. Although the model is based on data about the phonology of language disordered children, it is valid for normal development and useful for diagnosis of phonological impairment. Data included a cross-sectional study of 31 language disordered children aged 4 to 8…

The current study attempts to differentiate effects of phonotactic probability (i.e. the likelihood of occurrence of a sound sequence), neighbourhood density (i.e. the number of phonologically similar words), word frequency, and word length on expressive vocabulary development by young children. Naturalistic conversational samples for three…

Used growth curves and dynamic-systems modeling to examine early lexical and grammatical development of one male child. Found that lexical development described a pattern of logistic growth. Plural growth began after reaching a threshold in vocabulary size. Lexical growth slowed as plural growth increased, and increased when plural use reached…

A blind child and her sighted twin sister were recorded at home once a month from 2;5 to 3;5, and their repetitions and routines were analyzed with respect to three dimensions. Results showed that the blind twin used routines and modified imitations and repetitions more frequently, and her use of modified repetitions increased during the study.…

A study identified discourse patterns in potential disputes, deflected disputes, incomplete, and completed disputes from a one-hour conversation involving two 3-year-old female children and one female adult. These varied dispute episodes were identified, coded, and analyzed using a pragmatic model of adult argumentation focusing on the structures,…