Preschool children's responses to "wh-questions" (those including the concepts who, what, where, when, how, and why) were studied in order to determine the influence of socioeconomic status (SES) on frequency of correct and incorrect answers. Investigation focused on three questions: (1) When a response to a wh-question is incorrect,…

Descriptions of language learning and reading behaviors are presented, in this paper, within the context of a model of cognitive processing that reflects a continuum for the logical procession of language skills in human maturation and learning. Portions of the paper differentiate silent and oral reading in terms of cognitive load, which is a…

A multiple choice Metaphor Preferences Test was administered to 138 preschool through college subjects to determine the role of a metaphor's ground in determining a metaphor's appeal, and to document the evolution of preferences for different types of grounds. Ground is the common property that links the two terms of a metaphor (topic and…

Children aged 2;0 to 4;4, including native speakers of English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish, were asked to demonstrate causative statements by acting them out with toy animals and dolls. The major analysis focused on the total number of correct acting-out responses and the way this score related to several variables. Performance improved…

Intended for students, teachers, parents, and administrators in charge of educating bilingual children, the monograph provides a summarized account of the information available regarding theories and research in second language acquisition, divided into four chapters. Chapter I is an historical overview of language acquisition theories,…

This report summarizes six studies that examined the work of the Swedish Free Writing in School (FRIS) project, which followed the language development of 191 elementary school students from different socioeconomic areas over a three-year period. Following a brief description of the project, the report discusses each of the six studies, which deal…

The document contains 10 author contributed chapters (in four languages) which resulted from a 1976 international symposium on problems concerning the preschool education of blind children and the guidance of their parents. Chapters have the following titles (with authors and nationality in parentheses): "Development of the Blind Child"…

Recent studies in productive phonology among immigrants have supported the case for the existence of a critical or sensitive period in language acquisition. The present study proposes that the case for a sensitive period would be further strengthened by the discovery of comparable age effects for other linguistic abilities such as listening…

Children's early utterances were studied to determine whether there are developmental changes in the content, context, frequency, and form of their speech and the degree to which the changes correspond to changes in Piagetian cognitive stage. Twenty children were studied; six were 10 or 11 months old, and the remaining 14 were distributed evenly…

The directory includes descriptions of over 130 developmental screening instruments for preschool and elementary aged children. The first section provides background regarding the development and use of screening programs, including the legal and social implications of screening. The second section discusses the criteria (administration,…

A review of the seminar proceedings on "The Realities of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child", held in Melbourne, Australia in May, 1978 is presented in this paper. The report contains the opening address and speeches on the following topics: (1) the rights of the child--myth or reality; (2) present social and judicial…

Second language reading research based on a psycholinguistic approach was undertaken. A model of the language user derived from the literature on first language acquisition was used. The role of conceptualization on second language reading, including the effects of interference and other factors in the first language, is discussed, and…

This paper discusses kinds and characteristics of language play, explores the relationship of such play to wider domains of language and play, and speculates on the possible contributions of language play for language mastery and cognitive development. Jump rope chants and ritual insults ("Off my case, potato face") and other expressive…

Since the mastery of any subject matter depends on learning its key concepts--its language--content area teachers should use innovative vocabulary development exercises to help their students master the language of the subject area. Teachers should try to coordinate vocabulary study with other learning tasks instead of depending on dull,…

Literature on the sighted child suggests that blind children might be delayed in language acquisition and/or restricted in the semantic content of their utterances and in the communicative intentions they express. This study questions the use of guidelines appropriate for monitoring sighted children in the study of language development in blind…