The cognitive skills required in pretend play and language were examined in two studies in which children imitated pretend-play behaviors and sentences. As hypothesized, the control of animate and inanimate components in play and language were significantly related. (Author/MP)

Exercises in 10 prewriting skill areas (scribbling, imitation, tracing, completion, discrimination, automatic writing, cued writing, free associating, ordered writing, and message writing) are suggested to help students with writing disabilities. The exercises are explained to help in identifying as well as remediating the problem. (CL)

Issues in illiteracy are discussed, and the author comments on facets of the English language writing system. He advocates a formal approach in which comprehension, rather than decoding, is the focus for students, including slow learners or disabled readers. The approach would concentrate on patterns larger than the letter-sound unit. (CL)

A linguistic functions approach, which refers to the general social uses of language, is advocated as the most appropriate method of language instruction for mentally retarded children. Principles are detailed for sequencing linguistic functions for instruction through stages of expression of desires, reference and person concepts, inquiry skills,…

The Whisman Language Tutor program, a 10-level continuum of language acquisition developed to guide the teaching of syntactical structures through commands and questions, has successfully used learning disabled students as tutors for their non-English speaking peers. (CL)

One child's unique phonological rule is reported, which increased output variety and still yielded a mismatch with the adult form. It is argued that an addition to the strategies described by Menn is needed to account for the discovery of this rule and for later stages of phonological development. (Author)

A case is reported of failure to supply negation in tag questions for a period of nearly two years. It is argued that such cases, which have been explained in terms of limited processing capacity, are equally compatible with an explanation in terms of context-specific knowledge. (Author)

The paper presents a rationale for the legitimacy of including limited English proficiency students in the caseload of the public school speech-language pathologist and provides an outline of language facilitation techniques and appropriate objectives for students at a beginning or a low intermediate level of English proficiency. (Author)

The language age equivalent scores on the Verbal Language Development Scale calculated from mother, father, and teacher reports on 15 preschool children were compared and found to be highly correlated. (Author)

The overall effectiveness of structured language teaching was positive. However, it is necessary to identify and analyze those factors which could influence the effectiveness of structured language programing with language delayed children. (Author)

Performance of 30 children (retarded, nonretarded, and language impaired) on nonlinguistic symbolic and conceptual cognitive tasks was measured. The performance of the retarded and nonretarded groups was essentially similar, while both of these groups generally performed at higher stage levels than did the language impaired group. (Author/CL)

Results indicated that Down's syndrome children are delayed in their language development compared to nonretarded children of the same developmental age. This language delay appears to be related to deficiencies in vocal imitation skills but is not related to general sensorimotor functioning. (Author)

Results indicated that the diagnostic questioning strategy using Full Model to Open Questioning was more efficacious for modifying the structure and content of young learners' expressive language repertoires than the reverse, which begins with an open ended question, "tell me about this," and proceeds through more restricted alternatives.…

In the article the major principles of a whole language approach are identified and discussed as they may be applied with learning disabled (LD) children. Theoretical assumptions and specific educational practices are described, with recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of whole language programs for LD children. For related…

The importance of play in children's cognitive development is stressed, and the roles of transformation and language in play are examined. (CL)