The author recommends the use of a multidisciplinary team approach to language facilitation with mentally handicapped children. The role of the team in developing communication skills in the child is discussed, and a model of communication with three principle components (linguistic aspects, paralinguistic aspects, and interaction management) is…

The acquisition of expressive sign language was studied in four autistic children (ages 10-15 years). Ss were taught expressive sign labels for common objects using a training procedure consisting of prompting, fading, and stimulus totation. The signing of three of the Ss was found to be controlled solely by the visual cues associated with the…

This document reviews some of the indices of language development which have been constructed since the Anderson study of 1937. In addition to the findings of Anderson, the T-unit proposed by Hunt (1965), the measure of T-unit length and mean number of sentence-combining transformations per T-unit developed by O'Donnell, Griffin, and Norris…

To gain some insight into the problem of deviant speech development in low income populations, this study investigated the environmental factors that encourage the development of normal speech. Two specific questions were examined in this study: (1) If specific vocalized environmental sounds are presented contiguously with reinforcement, will…

This is a bilingual book about language development of the young child. It is written for parents, with the objective of providing them with skills to help their children learn to talk. Emphasis is on maintaining communication between parent and child from infancy in a non-pressured, accepting, and positive environment. Developmental (normative)…

Two studies investigated preschool children's comprehension of the missing subject of infinitival complement clauses. In the first study, use of a Surface Structure Minimal Distance principle of the type outlined by C. Chomsky was distinguished from use of a Semantic Role Principle. Preschoolers acted out sentences in which the use of the two…

This book is based upon the theory that we use language as a means of organizing a representation of the world--each for himself--and that the representation so created constitutes the world we operate in, the basis of all the predictions by which we set the course of our lives. Chapter 1 discusses this theory; Chapter 2 relates what is relevant…

The development of vocabulary and listening skills was studied in a group of 200 kindergarten children. Twenty-three teachers and aides took part in the study. Of the children, 130 attended Title I schools, and 70 attended a center in a middle- and upper-socioeconomic environment. Pretesting and posttesting of the children were carried out. In one…

Black English has existed for a considerable length of time in the North as well as in the South. West African slaves who came to New York in 1625 found a contact language useful and mandatory in order to function in the slave community. The earliest slaves in the New York area may have used Pidgin English, Pidgin Portuguese, or Pidgin French…

Numerous studies have been devoted to determining the interrelationships of listening to other language arts. Most of these studies have been focused on the effects of listening on reading; most also assume that listening ability can be measured and that effective measurement instruments exist. Even though the listening component of the language…

The importance of the accumulating fund of language-related information available to teachers is the result of several developments: (1) There has been an increase in the amount of available research data; (2) The computer has made possible research previously impossible to design; (3) Data are more readily available through centers with acronymic…

The personal-growth model of the language arts, based on views expressed at the 1966 Dartmouth Seminar, emphasizes creative drama as important in contributing to children's language development. However, any increase in creative drama within language arts programs is jeopardized by current conditions, which include limited economic resources,…

This study attempted to determine: (1) whether lower-order units (agent or agent-action) within the agent-action-recipient relationship exist in any functional way in the 1-word infant's comprehension of speech; and (2) whether the use of repetition and/or reduced length (common modifications in adult-to-infant speech) used to focus on these…

Children seem to learn language more quickly when movement precedes language use. (JH)

In Language Arts program attention should be given to oral communication and listening skills as well as reading skills.