The effectiveness of a behavioral skills training (BST) package to teach the implementation of the first three phases of the picture exchange communication system (PECS) was evaluated with 3 adults who had no history teaching any functional communication system. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effectiveness…

This article explores one context in which language arts instruction can be enhanced through digital technologies. It describes how preservice elementary education teachers first investigated aspects of visual literacy and then engaged in digital and traditional multimodal forms of response to historical nonfiction literature. They read,…

This paper focuses on the relation between two areas of research which owe a great debt to the work of Giyoo Hatano: the ways in which the use of the abacus mediates arithmetic problem solving and the way in which the use of the kanji writing system mediates the interpretation of unfamiliar words. These examples are related to L. S. Vygotsky's…

The present article offers comments on the infusion of methodologies, approaches, reasoning strategies, and findings from the fields of genetics and genomics into studies of complex human behaviors (hereafter, complex phenotypes). Specifically, I discuss issues of generality and specificity, causality, and replicability as they pertain to…

This article investigates lexical gender in specialized communication. The key method of analysis is that of forms of address, professional titles, and "generic man" in a 10 million word corpus of written Business English. After a brief introduction and literature review on both gender in specialized communication and similar corpus-based views of…

A great deal of disagreement exists as to whether the writing systems of the Brahmi family of scripts from Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent and the Hangul script of Korea should be classified as alphabets or syllabaries. Both have in common a mixture of syllabic and alphabetic characteristics that has spawned vigorous disagreement among…

The comparison of a tape recording of Pompidou's press conference on Sept. 21, 1973 and its reproduction in "Le Monde" on Sept. 23, 1973 shows what changes the text undergoes on being put into writing, from the spoken original. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

The media are sources of great power because they are relentless and invisible persuaders. Man does not offer resistance for he is often unaware of the effect of their presence, concentrating on the "content" while every form of his experience and the quality of life itself is shaped by the "message" form. (VT)

Describes the current use of comparative subordinating conjunctions or coordinators on the basis of data collected from a corpus of one million words of German in print. Revises a number of the grammatical rules regarding the use of these words. (SED)

This study of suicide notes involved deduction of 25 protocol sentences that reflected important specific aspects of Freud's formulations regarding suicide. Independent judges noted incidence of contents corresponding to protocol sentences in 33 genuine and 33 simulated notes. Comparisons between genuine and simulated notes revealed that protocol…

Presents major characteristics of comtemporary views on oral and written language development. Critically reviews recent theoretical and research findings on language function and brain and concludes that very little information exists about the relationship between brain development and language development. (CMG)

The current spelling of words in English is so lacking in consistency that the time is ripe for the adoption of an alphabet that embodies some semblance of phonetics. This paper proposes a new alphabet for English that uses the English (Roman) letters as elements so that current type and typewriters can still be used. Furthermore, allowance is…

Analogies are useful tools in written English. The author describes a way to teach them and then gives his students' reactions. (MR)

Suggests five principles that characterize written language development: the establishment of equivalences; exploration and orchestration of the system; reliance on shifting relationships of form and function; differentiation and integration of symbolic functions; and participation in social dialogue. Discusses implications of this viewpoint for…

Notes that the term "roman" when used to describe characters of written languages, can be confusing because it is overloaded with four different meanings. Distinguishes among these four meanings and suggests alternative terms for each of them. (RS)