The literature on language development in young children is reviewed, and suggestions are offered for stimulating language skills through informal conversation and the manipulation of materials. (DB)

Part of a larger investigation, "Selected Areas of Development of Twins in Relation to Zygosity, financed in part by a grant from the Florida State University Research Council and by the Institute of Human Development.

In an investigation of language transference vs. language interference, 12 trainable mentally retarded Spanish speakers (5 to 9 years old) were trained to name in English objects previously identified receptively and objects not previously identified receptively in Spanish. Results indicated no significant difference in the number of words learned…

A training program, using dual trainers, was used to reduce inappropriate verbalizations and increase appropriate verbal responses of three profoundly handicapped individuals. During training, one trainer asked questions and the other trainer gave verbal prompts. The method was evaluated with three experiments: Experiment I used dual trainers with…

Twelve pairs of three-year-olds and twelve pairs of five-year-olds were monitored in a play situation; their transcribed speech was examined for use of nominal reference, with attention to pronominalization and ellipsis. For the corpus of nominal references, there was a clear trend toward normal progression from specific indefinite to definite to…

This manual is designed to help parents facilitate their children's language development. It is divided into five sections based on different levels of language development that extend from children's early use of sounds to their production of four and five word sentences. Each section contains a brief general description of children's speech and…

A study involving three profoundly retarded adults was designed to investigate the efficacy of a stair step diagonal training progression in promoting correct responses to untrained action-object verbal instructions. Procedures included pretraining assessment of action verbs and nouns, matrix training in which each S was physically put through the…

One English speaking child's phonological, semantic, and syntactical development from 15 to 21 months old is detailed in order to investigate the development of the mid vowel categories in English as reflected in spontaneous speech production. Prior research on this topic is summarized to reveal certain trends in the development of mid vowels.…

WORDS CAN BE STUDIED BY DESCRIBING THEIR ORIGIN INDUCTIVELY OR DEDUCTIVELY. EITHER WAY, A PRECISE DEFINITION OF ETYMOLOGICAL CLASSES WHICH ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE IS NEEDED. PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH IS CLASSIFIED INTO--(1) NATIVE WORDS WHICH CAN BE TRACED BACK TO THE WORD STOCK OF OLD ENGLISH, (2) LOAN WORDS NEW TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE WHICH HAD…

BASED ON EXPERIMENTATION EXAMINING THE THINKING CAPACITIES OF DEAF CHILDREN, THIS PAPER REPORTS FINDINGS ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP OF ABILITY TO LINGUISTIC EXPERIENCE. PERFORMANCE OF DEAF CHILDREN ON TASKS INVOLVING CONCEPT FORMATION AND LOGICAL THINKING WAS FOUND TO BE COMPARABLE TO THAT OF MATCHED HEARING SUBJECTS WHEN VERBALIZATION WAS NOT…

SOME RECENT INNOVATIONS IN TEACHING LANGUAGE WERE INVESTIGATED. THE TECHNIQUES OF PROGRAMED INSTRUCTION WERE MERGED WITH THE USE OF AN ELECTRIC TYPEWRITER TO PROVIDE THE MEANS OF TEACHING READING TO YOUNG DEAF CHILDREN. DEAF CHILDREN, RANGING IN AGE FROM THREE TO SEVEN YEARS, PARTICIPATED IN THIS STUDY. AS A GROUP, THEY TENDED TO BE OF AVERAGE…

The speech of three girls aged 17 to 19 months was recorded in three at-home sessions. Patterns of single-word and multiple-word utterances were different for each of the three girls. This difference seems to support the notion that the most interaction-oriented child has, at least in terms of the word classes upon which she bases her…