This report of a seminar on information technology (IT) and language development begins by presenting background on language skills and information technology in order to define the scope of the topic. The report then pulls together and elaborates on the output of the seminar. The first section discusses media-centered issues, including the design…

This newsletter issue contains four articles all addressing aspects of intervention with infants and toddlers having communication disorders. The first, "Assessing the Communication of Infants and Toddlers: Integrating a Socioemotional Perspective" (Barry M. Prizant and Amy M. Wetherby) describes a new instrument, the Communication and Symbolic…

Intended for teachers in Tasmania, this booklet discusses the role of parents and the home in language development as an integral and important part of a school's language program. The booklet suggests that schools need to determine the best way to communicate to parents: how important parents are to the early development of children's language;…

A study examined how children's understanding and use of written language and graphic/constructive art are embedded in the social world of their classrooms and how they explore the potential of communication systems (specifically, what socio-psychological strategies they use). Subjects were 21 3- and 4-year-old children of faculty and staff at a…

Developed to explore how individuals receive and process sensory information, this paper describes a curriculum designed for elementary students concerning the brain and information processing. The course is entitled "Mind Adventuring: Learning about How We Learn" and is structured into eight units of study. Descriptive accounts are…

Focusing on areas of development related to Chapter 53 screening, this manual is designed to assist New York City teachers in using the screening results to support optimal development for the children in their classes. Chapter 53 of the Laws of 1980 provides for the screening of all new entrants into the school system, usually in kindergarten or…

Children and adults participated in a series of experiments to examine certain cues to surface constituency that are salient to children in the recognition of syntactic structure. Cue recognition was studied through a set of experiments requiring seven-year-old children to repeat certain syntactic constituents. It was found that the children could…

When used diagnostically at the readiness level, language-experience becomes an effective way to meet individual differences and to differentiate instruction in a group setting. For a 5- or 6-year old, school should be an exciting, happy, purposeful place, and language-experience lends itself well to such a setting. The first steps are to…

Focusing on how children learn to read in a language they have previously only spoken, this book illustrates the skill theory of reading development, which encompasses both new perceptual processes and modified but familiar integrative cognitive processes of language comprehension. The chapters discuss the following aspects of learning to read:…

A study examined the interrelationship among print-related skills developed prior to formal reading instruction and social class differences in these skills in 33 middle-class and working-class children attending one of two high quality, reading-oriented kindergarten classes. Two hypotheses were generated: (1) that correlations would emerge among…

The principles of the cognitive theory of learning are analyzed and applied to the process of second language learning. They are then evaluated in terms of the extent to which they contribute to a coherent theory and the extent to which they can be applied to instruction in general and second language instruction in particular. Recent empirical…

This study provides longitudinal observations of young children's behaviors while viewing television in their own homes, over a time when the children were actively involved in the process of language acquisition. A total of 16 children were observed for a period ranging from 6 to 8 months. At the beginning, their ages ranged from 6 and 1/2 to 29…

Intended for parents and educators, this monograph briefly describes the relationship between the language processes of reading and writing and suggests some ways language development can be encouraged in young children. The monograph begins by recognizing that writing is a process consisting of prewriting, writing, and rewriting, and urges…

A study examined the quantity and quality of language produced by kindergarten and early primary Native American pupils in relation to selected factors in the classroom context in which the language was produced. Observations of about 50 classrooms were conducted in schools serving predominantly Native American pupils on and off reservations in…

The study examined effects of training older siblings (ages 6-8) of six 1- to 3-year-old infants and toddlers with Down syndrome to employ social communication strategies in play sessions. Three secondary purposes included evaluating effects of intervention upon the communication skills of the Down syndrome children, effects of intervention on…