Analyzes early lexical and phonological development in three children from late babbling through the acquisition of 50 conventional words. Focuses on (1) the relationship between prelinguistic and linguistic vocalizations, (2) phonological development after the onset of speech, (3) patterns of lexical selection, (4) rate of lexical acquisition,…

The acquisition of "to" in infinitive complement structure was examined in the spontaneous speech data from four children who were observed longitudinally from two to three years of age. Results support the conclusion that the verb system is a determining factor in the acquisition of linguistic structure. (SED)

Twelve preschoolers who had Down's Syndrome, hydrocephalus, or brain damage of unknown etiology and who functioned at early and late linguistic Stage I were asked to respond to commands in simple, complete adult forms and in incomplete, telegraphic child forms. Late Stage I Ss were superior in comprehension of all forms. (CL)

Semantic discourse features of written narratives of 49 hearing impaired children (10-15 years old) were examined in an analysis of the relationship between form and meaning in the writing of both hearing and hearing impaired Ss. Syntactic and semantic written language growth appear to be qualitatively and quantitatively different in the groups.…

Describes acoustic analysis of the speech of a child from 46 to 149 weeks in which overall word duration, pitch perturbation, and within-word phonetic segments were measured. The subject's overall word duration decreased considerably at a relatively late stage, supporting the claim that a child's neuromuscular control improves with maturation.…

Spoken language of 24 teachers and 131 hearing impaired students (6, 10, and 14-year levels) were analyzed for sentence length and complexity. Results revealed that the oral-alone (OA) teachers in OA institutions created richer language environments and helped children display relatively enhanced oral linguistic growth compared to laissez faire…

The software programs "Toddlers' Tutor" and "Story Machine" have been used along with fingerspelling and sign language interpretation with deaf and mentally retarded students. Improvements have been noted in the reception/expression of basic and expanded forms of signed and written language. (Author/CL)

Phonetic transcriptions of babbling samples from 11 normally hearing subjects, age 4-18 months, were compared with samples for 11 hearing-impaired students, age 4-28 months. Findings suggested both qualitative and quantitative differences in the babbling of the two groups. (Author/CL)

Results of a psychoeducational evaluation administered to 40 hearing-impaired children (5-18 years old) revealed that hearing loss of any degree appeared to affect psychoeducational development adversely, leading to the conclusion that even minimal hearing loss places children at risk for language and learning problems. (Author/CL)

A study of individual patterns of usual and unusual phonological process occurrence in nine phonologically disordered children revealed that a small, basic subset of phonological processes accounted for the majority of errors made, with frequency the distinguishing characteristic among individuals. Unusual processes were primarily changes in word…

An investigation of comprehension of 20 English idioms by hearing impaired students at reading levels 1-10 indicated students correctly chose the literal picture 92.8 percent of the time. Offered a picture, depicting the figurative meaning of the idiom, students' choices were correct from 39.6 percent-78.8 percent of the time. (Author/CL)

Curricular plans for deaf students include the study of English but not of American Sign Language (ASL). This omission suggests a lack of recognition of ASL as a language and as the communication system of deaf people. Every program for the deaf students should include ASL in its requirements. (Author/CL)

The role of context in language learning is examined, and an approach for adapting contextual information to language remediation with the mentally retarded is described. The importance of obtaining information about the child's communicative environment and of incorporating the natural setting in the natural environment is stressed. (CL)

The article describes an approach to language intervention with mentally retarded preschoolers that begins with the child's communicative needs and skills. Classroom management issues, including the frequency, variety, and consistency of the child's communication are examined for their effects on communication. (CL)

Describes a study that examined phonological features of a group of 10 Urdu speaking children (20 to 30 months) to determine if a general theory of language learning can be deduced on the basis of Jakobson's theory of language universals. Addresses the question of how far such a theory is applicable to Urdu speaking children acquiring their native…