A study investigated the validity of a linking rule of object affectedness; the rule states that an argument is expressed as the direct object of a verb if its referent is specified as affected in a specific way in the semantic representation of the verb. Specifically, the study examined whether the principle determines which argument will be…

Theoretical, diagnostic, and remedial issues related to polyglot dyslexia (i.e., difficulties in reading experienced in both languages spoken by bilinguals) are considered. Theoretical causes of dyslexia, research done with neuropsychological and neurolinguistic aspects of bilingualism, the literature on polyglot aphasia, and theoretical concerns…

Reports on a language evolution theory based on the factors (1) the survival value of speech, (2) associated behavior patterns, and (3) brain structure development. (CP)

Bring the past into the present to view history in a new way. (Editor)

A survey examining the effect of sex, age and social class on the development of the speech habits of children of elementary school age in Germany. (Text is in German.) (TL)

A theoretical base and techniques for language development through storytelling. (Author)

A study is reported which examined the acquisition of deictic verbs by asking children to identify the speaker or the addressee of utterances containing "come,""go,""bring," and "take." Analysis showed that children go through several stages in the acquisition of deictic verbs. (Author/RM)

The diamante form--a seven-line, diamond-shaped poem--was successfully used to encourage students' poetry writing. (JH)

The director of the Growth and Development Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development lists issues and research needs in the areas of language acquisition and language development in children, prevention of communicative disorders, and adolescent speech and language. (LH)

Eight pamphlets provide information to parents about the developmental characteristics of toddlers at different ages and related caregiving concerns. Two issues of the series focus on children 13- to 15-months-old, two on 16- to 18-months-old, two on 19- to 21-months-old, and two on 22- to 24-months-old. The first issue in each pair focuses on…

Reported are two experiments investigating children's comprehension and production of the causal connectives "because" and "so" in empirical and intentional modes of explanation. In the empirical mode, "because" introduces a description of a cause, whereas "so" introduces a description of an effect. In the…

A study investigated the development of children's metalinguistic understanding of the meanings of two non-ostensive words beyond the usual semantic acquisition period. The words, whose meanings cannot be associated with an object by pointing, were "pain" and "pretend". Two specific questions were addressed: What types of…

An attempt was made to train nine severely mentally retarded children to be more effective communicators within a referential communication paradigm. The researchers sought, too, to examine the importance of three skills involved in formulating an effective message: coping with referents similar to the nonreferents, comparison skills, and ability…

The report describes activities and accomplishments of a project examining facilitative effects of manual signs on oral language comprehension of communication disordered but normal hearing students. The initial section details background and pre-grant studies leading up to the project effort. Studies touched upon such aspects as presentation…

Although Mandarin is a discourse topic oriented language rather than a subject and sentence oriented one, Chinese children acquiring Mandarin attempt in their early speech to exactly mark the same referential grammatical relationships as subject, object, location, and instrument by using case or ergative markers. Only after marking a closed set of…