Linguists in the Wisconsin Native American Language Project are giving written form to five tribal languages to prevent their being lost forever. (Editor)

The author is the director of the English Speaking Board, an organization which brings together people from all walks of life who are concerned with oral communication as a means to the "improvement of personal relationships and the sharing of personal endeavor". Here she focuses on 3-13 year-old children and their verbal development. (Editor/RK)

Reports on a Listen-Read Program exposing children to a variety of language in sound and print through the coordinated use of books and listening centers; a study of the program indicated higher scores on a standardized reading test resulted from children's listening to the text while they read. (HOD)

Describes measurement instruments for language development, literature, reading, English as a second language, and writing. (DD)

When speaking to young children just acquiring language, parents employ certain appropriate language features. Parental speech in English and Spanish was analyzed for presence and distribution of these features. Differences were noted, yet there was a high degree of similarity across parents and languages for frequently occuring features. (CHK)

Adult expansion of child utterances can serve as a communication check and as a base for child language research. Inappropriate expansion may be corrected by the child if it changes his meaning, or may be ignored, if word order or phonetics appeared correct to the child. (CHK)

The speech of two mothers to their infants between three and eighteen months was analyzed. Simplicity of speech was about the same at all ages, not showing abrupt change as children began to talk. It is suggested that mothers used a conversational model and changes reflect children's growing conversational ability. (CHK)

Presents a language-awareness (LA) perspective on the concept of autonomy in second-language learning. The article distinguishes between two kinds of LA, examines child development and the role played by metalinguistic knowledge and literacy in first-language acquisition and examines the role played by both kinds of LA in second-language pedagogy.…

Compared comprehension of novel communicative signs to assist 2.5- and 3-year-old humans, chimpanzees, and orangutans find hidden objects during a hiding-finding game. Found that children at both ages performed above chance with all signs. No ape performed above chance for any signs not known before the experiment despite three times as many…

Details speech acquisition process of first British, congenitally deaf infant without other handicaps to be fitted with a cochlear implant, noting the utility of Ling's model of speech acquisition. Notes that following implant, subject showed pattern and timing of acquisition of spoken words comparable to that of normally hearing infants or of…

This study examined stimulability in 30 children (ages 3 to 5) with articulation impairments. Factors found to relate to stimulability were articulation visibility, the child's age, the family's socioeconomic status, and the child's overall imitative ability. Perception, severity, otitis media history, language abilities, consistency of…

Noting that in previous research, the linguistic status of the unit has often been confounded by its size, five experiments were conducted to provide a better test of the linguistic status hypothesis. Results supported the linguistic status hypothesis by indicating that effects of linguistic level on phonological sensitivity cannot always be…

Examined the associations among speech perception, phonological awareness, naming speed, verbal memory, and word reading. Multiple measures were administered to 136 3rd- and 4th-grade children. Results indicated that naming speed was particularly highly associated with speech perception, whereas phonological awareness was substantially correlated…

Longitudinal data on the unstructured interactions at home of nine children (ages 11-60 months) with Down syndrome were used to compare individual differences in initial expressive vocabulary growth to data on 42 children without disabilities. Findings indicate that the overall pattern of vocabulary growth was similar in all the children.…

Hebrew-speaking fourth and seventh graders from lower middle-class backgrounds were tested on gender markings of numerals in two situations involving monitored and unmonitored situations. Results indicated the disappearance of gender agreement in Modern Hebrew numerals and a re-analysis of numeral suffixes by speakers. (Author/JL)