Explored relation between infants' early spontaneous imitation of novel and familiar words and subsequent lexicons in longitudinal sample between 13 and 21 months. Found marked contrasts in quantity and proportions of nouns between reported and observed lexicons. When earlier vocabulary levels were controlled, infants' early replication of novel…

Twenty-four 12- to 19-month-old children were studied to examine the cognitive basis for the emergence of verbs. Substantial increases in verb comprehension across contexts, abstract cognition, and the ability to engage in symbolic action were observed, suggesting a relationship between underlying cognitive development and increased verb…

Provides three teaching strategies that integrate technology into the curriculum: inductive teaching, cooperative learning, and mnemonics. (MG)

Sixteen moderately mentally retarded children, aged 9-13, were trained in sight words by manipulating pictorial stimuli (fading versus nonfading) in relationship to the word stimulus location (superimposition versus juxtaposition of picture and word), to orient the learner's attention to the word. Subjects who were trained using superimposition…

Reviews secondary school reading research in reading comprehension, vocabulary development, reading interests and habits, textbooks, teaching procedures, and reading in content areas published between 1959 and 1988 in Nigeria. Looks at Nigerian research results from a global perspective. Suggests areas for future research. (RS)

Two experiments investigated the effects of peer modeling on the acquisition of receptive and expressive language responses. Experiment 1 studied lexical learning among five children who were mildly/moderately developmentally disabled. Experiment 2 investigated the observational learning of receptive and expressive language responses by two…

Findings from a study of 504 second grade students indicate that phonics knowledge has a causal impact on both reading comprehension and vocabulary gains; reading comprehension has a causal effect on vocabulary gains. (Author/IAH)

Investigates whether it is worthwhile to spend time teaching children in the intermediate grades to derive the meaning of words through morphological analysis. Proposes a stage model of morphological analysis which supports morphological teaching at grade four and above. (RS)

Presents a quiz for use in the advanced English classroom that introduces language learners to a variety of amusing slang expressions and idioms. The learner is led to consider the possibility of a little-known rule in English: male=positive, female=negative, and is offered an opportunity for discussion and vocabulary building. (Author/VWL)

Examines interactions between 48 mothers and their two- , three-and-a-half-, and five-year-old children during book reading sessions. Formal reading and interchange about story content increased with age and book familiarity, while labelling decreased with age and book familiarity. (RJC)

Command of transitivity permutations in Hebrew, where a change in verb-argument syntax entails a change in verb morphology, were examined in 30 children aged 2, 3, and 8. Findings have implications for the development of derivational morphology, item-based versus class-based learning, and the impact of lexical productivity and language-particular…

Three youths with mental retardation and behavior disorders were taught functional sight words that supported participation in recreation activities in community settings. Direct instruction with in vivo word find activities was demonstrated to be effective in promoting acquisition of functional sight words. Word recognition was maintained at…

Summarizes current cognitive psychological knowledge concerning second language vocabulary acquisition and discusses implications for the development of effective computer-assisted vocabulary acquisition methods. (85 references) (Author)

Reviews existing examples of computer-assisted vocabulary learning and suggests some principles for the future design of such programs. The issues considered are the extent to which the program is specifically oriented to vocabulary learning, what gives the interaction its instructional value, and what makes an interaction specifically…

In this longitudinal study, changes in parental labelling and infants' categorization skills were examined as potential predictors of vocabulary acquisition, the age of the naming explosion, and the acquisition of subordinate labels. Findings suggest that the influence of each factor varies as a function of the stage and aspect of lexical…