Previous work has shown that toddlers readily encode each noun in the sentence as a distinct argument of the verb. However, languages allow multiple mappings between form and meaning that do not fit this canonical format. Two experiments examined French 28-month-olds' interpretation of right-dislocated sentences ("noun"-verb,…

Political theorists, generally non-experts in the language sciences, whose principal aim is often to advance normative theories on desirable states of affairs within liberal democratic states, tend to deal with language as a stable nominal category, as something that one "has" or "doesn't have", that can be labeled as one…

This article focuses on the acquisition of mood in early complement clauses of European Portuguese (EP). Two semantic features are involved in the EP mood system--epistemicity and veridicality. An elicited production task administered to 80 children aged 4 to 9 showed that, even though children use the subjunctive in [-- epistemic] contexts, the…

This study investigates parent-teacher dialogues on child language learning as constructed in 19 interviews with migrant parents of Polish ethnolinguistic background, resettled in Norway and caring for young preschoolers and school-goers. Targeting reported speech as a linguistic resource for enacting agency in discourse, the focal interest is in…

The purpose of this article is to report results of an investigation into the production of a covert contrast by native speakers of Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish in the acquisition of the English distinction between the high front vowels /i/ and /?/. A covert contrast is a statistically reliable acoustic distinction made by a language learner…

The work of L.S. Vygotsky was popularised in the West between two great waves of educational thought: constructivism and cognitivism. Reception was therefore colored by three metaphors introduced by Jerome Bruner: 'construction', 'scaffolding' and 'narrative'. Narratives were to be characterized by features we call SELF: Subjects, Expectancy and…

Ramps and Pathways (R&P) early physical science activities enable educators and young children (3-8 years) to explore and investigate what happens as marbles and rolling objects are released on constructed ramp structures and pathways using wooden cove molding. The R&P project challenged educators to transform their views of early science…

This paper focuses on the influence of socio-economic risk factors and different aspects of the home learning environment in early childhood on children's language competencies (vocabulary and grammar skills). The assumption is that children with more risk factors have lower competencies, but the home learning environment (measured by everyday…

Borrowing from a clinical psychology observational methodology, thin-slice observations were used to assess autism characteristics in toddlers. Thin-slices are short observations taken from a longer behavior stream which are assigned ratings by multiple raters using a 5-point scale. The raters' observations are averaged together to assign a…

Word segmentation in L2 is not as optimal as in L1 because many, though not all, cues to signal word boundaries appear to be largely language-specific. Native English listeners use short-lag versus long-lag VOTs in segmenting pairs such as "Lou spills" versus "loose pills." Polish contrasts negative versus short-lag VOTs, so…

Despite the prevalence of educational apps for children, there is little evidence of their effectiveness for learning. Here, children were asked to learn ten new words in a narrative mobile game that requires children use knowledge of word meanings to advance the game. Study 1 used a lab-based between-subjects design with middle-SES 4-year-olds…

Data-driven decision making (DDDM) helps educators identify children not responding to intervention, individualize instruction, and monitor response to intervention in multitiered systems of support (MTSS). More prevalent in K-12 special education, MTSS practices are emerging in early childhood. In previous reports, we described the Making Online…

The early home language environment, and parents in particular, form the foundation of children's language development. In this article, Dina Kapengut and Kimberly Noble explore the intersection of neuroscience and developmental psychology to explain how language experiences in the home, and the "home learning environment" more broadly,…

The purpose of this article is to justify the value of Indigenous research paradigms, specifically in the context of research on language acquisition. This argument has implications not only for research on language acquisition and the practice of language instruction but also for qualitative research, more broadly. Specifically, depending on the…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the inclusion of a bi-directional communication journal between caregivers and student clinicians during a five-week summer preschool programme impacted caregivers' perceptions and had a positive impact on their children's language development. This study included a mixed methods design. Child…