Previous research has shown that infants match vowel sounds to facial displays of vowel articulation [Kuhl, P. K., & Meltzoff, A. N. (1982). The bimodal perception of speech in infancy. "Science, 218", 1138-1141; Patterson, M. L., & Werker, J. F. (1999). Matching phonetic information in lips and voice is robust in 4.5-month-old infants. "Infant…

Four experiments explored the processes that bridge between referent selection and word learning. Twenty-four-month-old infants were presented with several novel names during a referent selection task that included both familiar and novel objects and tested for retention after a 5-min delay. The 5-min delay ensured that word learning was based on…

Oral language is a cognitive tool used to construct meaning, internalize the language used in print, and regulate thought and activity. A classroom rich in talk supports children's language and literacy development. Talk clears up confusion and serves to share interests and ideas. Kalmar describes the value of talking and listening, their…

Background: It is generally assumed that children with Down syndrome (DS) present a deficit in lexical production relative to their cognitive abilities. However, the literature on this topic has recently shown several contradictory results. In addition, most studies only consider vocabulary production in its vocal modality. However it is also…

Two picture naming experiments show that compound word production in Mandarin Chinese and in English is determined by the compound's whole-word frequency, and not by its constituent morpheme frequency. Four control experiments rule out that these results are caused by recognition or articulatory processes. These results are consistent with models…

Children from bilingual backgrounds are sometimes overidentified with language impairment (LI) because educators do not have appropriate developmental expectations. At other times bilingual children are underidentified because educators wait to identify difficulties while children learn the second language. In this review we discuss data on…

Purpose: This study examined whether young children with typical language development (TL) and children with language impairment (LI) make emotion inferences online during the process of discourse comprehension, identified variables that predict emotion inferencing, and explored the relationship of these variables to social competence. Method:…

Two experiments tested language switching effects with bilingual participants in a priming paradigm with masked primes (duration of 50ms in Experiment 1 and 100ms in Experiment 2). Participants had to monitor target words for animal names, and ERPs were recorded to critical (non-animal) words in L1 and L2 primed by unrelated words from the same or…

Background: Down syndrome (DS) is characterized by impaired memory span, particularly auditory verbal memory span. Memory span is linked developmentally to several language capabilities, and may be a basic capacity that enables language learning. If children with DS had better memory span, they might benefit more from language intervention. The…

Statistical regularities in language have been examined for new insight to the language acquisition process. This line of study has aided theory advancement, but it also has raised methodological concerns about the applicability of corpora data to child populations. One issue is whether it is appropriate to extend the regularities observed in the…

Purpose: Many typically developing children first use inflections such as "-ed" with verb predicates whose meanings are compatible with the functions of the inflection (e.g., using "-ed" when describing events of brief duration with clear end points, such as "dropped"). This tendency is assumed to be beneficial for…

The purpose of this study was to determine the natural order of acquisition of the proform "it," comparing deictic pronoun "it," anaphoric pronoun "it" and expletive "it." Files from four children (Adam, Eve, Nina and Peter) aged 1 ; 6-3 ; 0 in the CHILDES database were coded for occurrences of NP it (here it is) and expletive it (it's raining).…

This article argues that grammatical thinking within a framework of phenomenological hermeneutics assists designing and may properly be used as a fundamental teaching approach for an interdisciplinary art and design studio. Furthermore, it argues that the theme of grammatical design awareness could be considered as a generic issue across all…

This action research study examines the development of distributed leadership practice among a new team of teacher leaders and their principal at an elementary school. Using a qualitative approach including a series of interviews, observations and journal entries, this study analyzes the interactions and changing roles of teacher leaders and their…

Background: Children with Down's syndrome seem to show a preference for the use of gestural rather than vocal productions during the first stages of language development. This "gestural advantage" could actually be due to a developmental strategy used to compensate the difficulties in verbal production that are typical of language…