Every speech community has a baby talk register (BT) of phonological, grammatical, and lexical features regarded as primarily appropriate for addressing young children and also for other displaced or extended uses. Much BT is analyzable as derived from normal adult speech (AS) by such simplifying processes as reduction, substitution, assimilation,…

To promote the deinstitutionalization of mentally retarded individuals, a three-phase assessment prescription system has been developed. It conceptualizes return to the community as a series of transfers from a restrictive non-programmatic environment (phase one) through specialized short-term program-oriented rehabilitation (phase 2) to the least…

A discussion of word acquisition rates and strategies is based upon a 6-month case study of an Estonian-speaking child who gradually and systematically relaxed phonotactic constraints to allow greater complexity in word production. In addition to the cognitive tools of assimilation and accomodation as described by Piaget, the child used a further…

This report is one of a regular series on the status and progress of studies on the nature of speech, instrumentation for its investigation, and practical applications. Drawn from the period of January 1 to March 31, 1980, the 14 manuscripts cover the following topics: (1) acoustics in human communication; (2) motor-sensory feedback formulations;…

GOALS OF A SPEECH IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM FOR THE MENTALLY RETARDED IN WISCONSIN ARE DESCRIBED. THE FOLLOWING VARIOUS ASPECTS OF THE SPEECH PROGRAM ARE PRESENTED--(1) DEVELOPMENT OF A DELAYED SPEECH PROGRAM, (2) USE OF SOCIAL SKILLS FOR SPEECH PRACTICE, (3) REMEDIAL PROGRAM FOR DEFECTIVE ARTICULATION, AND (4) AUDITORY TRAINING. TYPES OF DEFECTS, A…

THE BASIC CONCEPTS USED IN DEVELOPING THE LANGUAGE AND READING EDUCATION PROGRAM WERE--(1) ALL HUMAN ORGANISMS ARE ESSENTIALLY ALIKE AND THEREFORE MAN'S BASIC NEEDS ARE THE SAME, (2) FUNDAMENTAL LIKENESSES EXIST IN ALL CULTURES, (3) CHILDREN FIRST INTRODUCED TO THE DIMENSIONS OF THEIR OWN CULTURE ARE READY TO MOVE TOWARD UNDERSTANDING THE OTHER…

In both diagnostic procedures and in program prescriptions, this book attempts to deal with the problem of the Hispanic child who speaks no Spanish and who, in fact, may be discouraged from learning Spanish by parents who mistakenly feel they are helping the child make a quicker transition to the dominant culture. The first three chapters present…

Philippine students in grades K-6, representing different socioeconomic classes, participated in individual elicitation sessions. Using Pilipino (Tagalog) as the language of elicitation, experimenters used pictorial stimuli to elicit specific structures of English grammar, in order to discover if the subjects had mastered these structures. Only…

The nature and extent of code-mixing in the language acquisition process over a 12-month period was studied with a child growing up in a bilingual English-Chichewa (Bantu language) speaking home. Data are examined from age 18 1/2 months to 30 1/2 months. Definitions of code-switching are offered, and an analysis of code-mixing in the speech of the…

This measure is designed to identify, assess, and diagnose the oral language capability of English and Spanish speakers, and to prescribe corrective or improvement activities. Part One provides minimum criteria to identify children who might need training in a second language. Part Two is designed to assess the child's primary or home language and…

A one-year project to explore the use of children's language served as a basis for staff development through the North Dakota Study Group on Evaluation. Children's conversations among themselves were observed and recorded within the classroom setting, and the content of the observations were used for planning curriculum and assessing children's…

This longitudinal study of bilingual language acquisition analyzes the order of acquisition of English grammatical morphemes in a child bilingual in English and Chichewa (a Bantu lanugage of East Central Africa). The order of acquisition obtained is compared to that obtained by Brown (1973) for monolingual English speaking children and that…

An examination of the linguistic behavior of monolingual and bilingual Spanish-speaking children in an environment where there is opportunity to develop proficiency in two languages is examined. A review of the literature concerned with the relationship of learning processes to psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic contexts precedes an examination…

Compositions in the narrative and argumentative modes of discourse were collected from 240 students (40 boys and 40 girls each from grades 6, 10, and 12) and analyzed for mean T-unit length to determine any differences in syntactic complexity across modes of discourse or grade levels. At each grade level, T-unit length was significantly greater in…

In any successful conversation, a speaker must select both what is said and how it is said on the basis of various estimates of the listener's abilities, knowledge and interests. Most research on linguistic input to children has focused on the tendency of speakers to simplify their speech for the younger listener. Little attention has been paid to…