Evaluated was the effectiveness of daily 10-minute sessions in a structured language training program (Teaching the American Language to Kids) with 72 moderately retarded students ages 5- to 13-years. Lee's Developmental Sentence Scoring of free speech samples was used as the pre- and posttest. Gain scores of 17 experimental Ss (students who had…

This paper describes some findings from language development research and from studies in which comprehension of certain sentence structures in written materials was examined. The paper is divided into four sections. "Language Development Studies" discusses research that looked at the sentence structures of produced language of groups of children,…

A study was conducted of the development of consonant clusters in the phonology of a native English-speaking child. His progress was studied over a year and a half period, in three one-month segments. His speech was recorded by tape and transcribed. Techniques used to elicit consonant clusters included real word imitation, imitation of nonsense…

To the question of whether Chomsky's hypothesized Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in young children is an adequate and feasible model of language acquisition, this paper answers that LAD should be reformulated so as to include semantics; that "informant presentation" rather than "text presentation" is responsible for language…

This paper proposes a theory on how language functions for the child and in what sequence these functions develop. The notion of communicative intention is contrasted with grammatical categories and with the goal of an utterance. Finally, communicative intentions and goals of utterances are contrasted with the innumerable pragmatic purposes which…

This study was conducted to examine the acquisition of the meaning of the temporal conjunctions "before" and "after." The initial hypothesis was that in the acquisition of a word, the child learns its semantic components one at a time. The subjects were 40 school children attending the Bing Nursery School at Stanford…

The research reports listed here comprise the responses received by the Stanford University Child Language Project to a general request for reports on current research in progress. A brief resume of each report is given here, and those resumes which were substantially edited by the project are identified by (STAFF). Each resume presents in order…

The documents listed in this selected bibliography on language teaching and learning appeared in the January through November 1974 issues of Research in Education (RIE). The entries are divided into three categories: (1) documents concerning language acquisition and development, (2) documents dealing primarily with the theoretical aspects of…

One of twelve exemplary programs summarized in the Introduction to Right to Read's "Effective Reading Programs: Summaries of 222 Selected Programs" (CS001934), the goal of this program is to reach disadvantaged children when they are three years old and to provide them with consistent, unbroken instruction through the third grade. Eleven…

Research findings concerned with the relationship between the child's oral language behavior and learning to read are described. A cognitive-biological approach to the child's perceptual system development is taken, and data are presented to support both the developmental point of view of language development and the point of view that the child…

This handbook for teachers contains language lessons for young children. Through sequencing and feedback, the program uses a direct method of teaching and learning standard English. It is an expository approach, in which progress is based on performance, rather than on the knowledge of rules. Each unit is organized so that language development and…

The Responsive Model Program uses the typing or learning booth as an important part of its autotelic (self-rewarding) environment, to help children develop the mental processes involved in discovery of relationships, such as the association of sound with symbols, or discovering the rules of a game. The typing booth also helps children to develop…

The assumption that the dyadic communication pattern (one teacher-one student) is the most effective pattern for encouraging language and speech development among elementary and preschool children is tested in this study. Fifty-six 4-year-old children from the Task Force Head Start Program of Buffalo, New York, were observed in four different…

This is a followup study of second and third grade children who experienced differential treatment during their kindergarten year. A total of 72 disadvantaged black children comprised the sample which was divided into three groups. Group A received a special sequential Learning to Learn Program. Group B participated in a traditional kindergarten…

This handbook describes young children's interaction with people, particularly their mothers. Children from contrasting socioeconomic conditions were used as subjects, and descriptions of these six 3-year-olds in their homes are related in detail. The home observation excerpts deal with the effect of mothers' instructions and demonstrations on…