Because of its potential importance for word learning, children's judgment of whether they know names for objects was investigated. In Study 1, judgment accuracy was at or near ceiling in about two-thirds of 4-year-olds, and covaried with judgment of word familiarity and with justifying novel name mapping in terms of avoidance of name overlap. The…

This study assessed the relation between mother mental state language and child desire language and emotion understanding in 15--24-month-olds. At both times point, mothers described pictures to their infants and mother talk was coded for mental and nonmental state language. Children were administered 2 emotion understanding tasks and their mental…

Teaching vocabulary to primary grade children is essential. Previous studies of teaching vocabulary (word meanings) using story books in the primary grades reported gains of 20%-25% of word meanings taught. The present studies concern possible influences on word meaning acquisition during instruction (Study 1) and increasing the percentage and…

A language and literacy intervention was implemented in 10 Head Start classrooms. Teachers were trained in specific book reading and conversation strategies. The focus of the intervention was to train teachers how to increase opportunities for language and vocabulary development in young children. At the end of the year, children in the…

Seventy-two 2-year-olds participated in a study designed to test two competing accounts of the effect of contextual change on children's ability to learn a word for an object. The mechanistic account hypothesizes that any change in context that highlights a target object will lead to word learning; the social-pragmatic account maintains that a…

This study investigated parents' knowledge and opinions about the picture books that are on the market for the children. Interviews and surveys were used. Then, surveys and interviews done with 20 parents were coded and analyzed, discussed, and implications were made by describing (a) parents' knowledge about the picture books, (b) different views…

The study presented in this paper was conducted within the theoretical framework of the three-dimensional global-trait model of lexical knowledge proposed by [Henrikson, B. 1999. Three dimensions of vocabulary development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 21, pp. 303-317], consisting of "breadth," "depth," and "receptive-productive"…

Vague feedback and misinterpretation of writers' intentions on the reviewers' part have been found to be two major reasons why most of their comments are disregarded during writers' revision in one EFL writing class. To resolve this problem, a training was conducted to coach these students to generate more specific comments. Four characteristics…

The aim of this research was to show the importance of instruction in learning a specific set of words. Two different tasks were used in the experiment: one in which subjects were required to fill in sentences and choose the appropriate answer in a multiple choice exercise (lexical test), and the other was a rating task designed to assess semantic…

In this article, the author presents a study which focused on some of the gaps in current knowledge about vocabulary acquisition from storybook reading. First, the study examined the effects of storybook reading on the vocabulary acquisition of 4- and 5-year-olds. Second, the study not only employed repeated readings of stories but also employed…

Purpose: This study investigated whether phonological or semantic encoding cues promoted better word learning for children with specific language impairment (SLI) and whether this treatment differentially affected children with SLI and normal language (NL). Method: Twenty-four preschoolers ages 4;0 (years;months) to 5;11 with SLI and 24 age- and…

In this article the authors develop a model that employs a factor analysis structure at Level 2 of a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM). The model (HLM2F) imposes a structure on a deficient rank Level 2 covariance matrix [tau], and facilitates estimation of a relatively large [tau] matrix. Maximum likelihood estimators are derived via the…

Purpose: This study assessed the fast mapping performance of children with specific language impairment (SLI) across the preschool to kindergarten age span in relation to their phonological memory and vocabulary development. Method: Fifty-three children diagnosed with SLI and 53 children with normal language (NL) matched for age and gender (30…

Students usually enter technology skills courses with varying experience and self-efficacy with technology. Teaching classes with mixed-efficacy at the same pace and level of contents may not ensure that all students would be equally motivated. This qualitative study explored strategies for motivating mixed profile classes by comparing learning…

"Adult Language Learners: Context and Innovation" presents instructional practices that are particularly successful with adults. Adult language learners are goal oriented and direct their learning to fulfill particular needs or demands: to advance their studies, to progress up the career ladder, to follow business opportunities, to pass…