Purpose: In this study, the authors examined the effects of the Teach-Model-Coach-Review instructional approach on caregivers' use of four enhanced milieu teaching (EMT) language support strategies and on their children's use of expressive language. Method: Four caregiver-child dyads participated in a single-subject, multiple-baseline study.…

Discussions that occur during book reading between parents and preschool children relate to children's language development, especially discussions during picture books that include extended discourse, a form of abstract language. While a recent report shows increased chapter book reading among families with preschool children, it is unknown…

Idiomatic expressions pose substantial learning difficulties for learners across languages and tend to be acquired later in the course of language development both in L1 and L2. A number of factors have been identified as contributing to this difficulty. However, cross-linguistic studies on figurative language acquisition are still rare. The…

Background: Pitch perception is enhanced among persons with autism. We extended this finding to memory for pitch and melody among school-aged children. Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate pitch memory in musically untrained children with autism spectrum disorders, aged 7-13 years, and to compare it to that of age- and…

Aim: To determine the effect of parent education on adaptive behaviour, autism symptoms and cognitive/language skills of young children with autistic disorder. Method: A randomised group comparison design involving a parent education and counselling intervention and a parent education and behaviour management intervention to control for parent…

Language and literacy skills are instrumental to success at school and early success with writing is a key factor in literacy development. By eight years of age, children spend up to half of their school day engaged in writing tasks suggesting that those who find learning to write difficult may be disadvantaged. The ability to hear and record…

In this article, I explore the incongruence between the federal government's proposed First Nations Education Act and the approach of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) regarding language and culture education. I also examine research concerning potential outcomes of their approaches to determine what would be most beneficial to learners.…

This study aims to investigate preschool staff's view of emergent literacy approaches in Swedish preschools with the following research question: How do preschool staff describe and explain the approaches they use in the emergent literacy environment of preschool? Focus-group interviews were conducted with 52 participating preschool units.…

Purpose: In the new mandatory National Preschool Curriculum Standards introduced by the Ministry of Education Malaysia, the play-based approach has been emphasized in the teaching and learning process. This study aimed to find out teachers' perception towards the use of the play-based approach in the language and literacy development of…

Vocabulary knowledge is a critical component of school readiness. The current study investigated the extent to which low levels of joint attention in infancy and parent-child book reading across early childhood increase the risk of children having poor vocabulary around the time of school entry. Relevant data from the Longitudinal Study of…

This study explores Korean-immigrant parents' language ideologies and practices with respect to their American-born children's language development. Participants were seven ethnic Korean families composed of immigrant parents and their American-born children, aged between five and seven, in Midwestern America. Interviews in the medium of Korean…

Purpose: The authors examined longitudinal associations between 2 categories of parent verbal responsiveness and language comprehension and production 1 year later in 40 toddlers and preschoolers with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Method: Parent-child play samples using a standard toy set were digitally captured and coded for…

Hearing impairment is an exceptional circumstance that restricts the child's ability to communicate verbally. Depression is a common stress-related response for hearing parents of children with hearing loss. Evidence suggests that mothers are more inclined than fathers to experience depression in response to their child's hearing loss (Mavrolas,…

Elucidating the neural basis of joint attention in infancy promises to yield important insights into the development of language and social cognition, and directly informs developmental models of autism. We describe a new method for evaluating responding to joint attention performance in infancy that highlights the 9- to 10-month period as a time…

Research into multilingualism and personality has shown that a majority of multilinguals report feeling different when they switch from one language to another. The present study looks at perceived shifts on five scales of feelings (feeling logical, serious, emotional, fake and different) in pair-wise comparisons between languages following the…