Purpose: This article presents the results of a meta-analysis to determine the effect of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) on the speech production of individuals with developmental disabilities. Method: A comprehensive search of the literature published between 1975 and 2003, which included data on speech production before, during,…

Purpose: This study examined the usefulness of the Nonword Repetition Test (NRT; C. Dollaghan & T. F. Campbell, 1998) with 4-year-old children and the relationship among the NRT, language, and other aspects of mental processing. Method: The NRT was administered to 64 children at 4 years of age; 44 had a history of typical language development…

The purpose of the current study was to examine the role of syllable duration context as well as static and dynamic acoustic properties in child and adult speech perception. Ten adults and eleven 4?5-year-old children identified a syllable as [ba] or [wa] (stop-glide contrast) in 3 conditions differing in synthetic continua. The 1st condition…

In this article I argue that both sociocultural theories and those that address academic literacies must be invoked to adequately understand language and literacy development in schools. Through exploring the histories, school lives, and viewpoints of two kindergarten students, I show how identity work negotiated in classroom interactions can…

Autism symptoms, including impairments in language development, social interactions, and motor skills, have been difficult to model in rodents. Since children exposed in utero to sodium valproate (VPA) demonstrate behavioral and neuroanatomical abnormalities similar to those seen in autism, the neurodevelopmental effects of this antiepileptic…

The Colorado Preschool and Kindergarten Program (CPKP) began as the Colorado Preschool Project in 1988 when it was authorized to serve 2,000 four and five year olds in need of language development. The General Assembly created this program in recognition of the need to adequately prepare children with specific at-risk factors to learn. The intent…

"Science Briefs" summarize the findings and implications of a recent study in basic science or clinical research. This brief reports on the study "Mother-Child Bookreading in Low-Income Families: Correlates and Outcomes during the First Three Years of Life" (H. Raikes, B. A. Pan, G. Luze, C. S. Tamis-LeMonda, J. Brooks-Gunn, J. Constantine, L. B.…

Background: The aim of the present study was twofold: 1) to determine whether phonological skills measured in deaf prereaders predict their later phonological and reading skills after one year of reading instruction as is the case for hearing children; 2) to examine whether the age of exposure to a fully specified phonological input such as Cued…

It has been observed that there is a strong association between the inherent (lexical) aspect of verbs and the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology (the aspect hypothesis; Andersen & Shirai, 1994). To investigate why such an association is observed, this study examined the influence of inherent aspect and learners' first language (L1) on the…

This article presents results from 2 studies comparing 3 approaches to teaching vocabulary during storybook reading: (a) contextual instruction, based on connecting words to their use in books and to children's personal experience; (b) analytical instruction, which enhances contextual instruction with semantic analysis of words in contexts other…

The role of hearing, although invisible, is critical to the development of language and literacy skills across key stage 1. Yet, Foundation stage and key stage 1 pupils are the most likely of all children to experience reduced hearing sensitivity, under developed listening skills and a less than ideal acoustic learning environment. The paper…

This article discusses the importance of fostering citizenship values in language classrooms around the world, and specifically in Morocco. Class content, student-teacher roles, classroom activities, and teacher education can promote civic values of equality, respect, responsibility, tolerance, and compassion. A learner-centered environment where…

Assessment is generally seen as one of the key challenges in the field of self-access learning (Gardner & Miller, 1999; Champagne et al., 2001; Lai, 2001; Kinoshita Thomson, 1996). Many researchers and practitioners point to difficulties with assessing language gains in an environment in which variables cannot comprehensively be controlled…

"Child Care Health Connections" is a bimonthly newsletter published by the California Childcare Health Program (CCHP), a community-based program of the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing, Department of Family Health Care Nursing. The goals of this newsletter are to promote and support a healthy and safe environment…

This paper reports on an investigation about the relation between a student's conscious awareness of the structure of a sentence and the degree of his/her intonation accuracy as well as his/her reading comprehension. The research was done based on the hypothesis that: "if the students are made conscious of the infrastructure of lengthy…