A child's acquisition of language may be influenced by imitation, reinforcement, inheritance and the active involvement of the child himself. (JH)

There are a number of views of the relationship between language and thinking. Two prominent figures in developmental psychology, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, proposed theories of language and thinking which also involve the notion of "communication." For Piaget, thinking develops first, and language comes along as an expression of…

Spontaneous interaction of three infants in conversational situations with a familiar adult at home were videotaped until the children were 2 years old, at 2- to 3-week intervals. Imitation was defined as children's utterances which maintained the order of adult utterances, were produced in the same tone, and which repeated at least one of the…

The present study investigates the acquisition of basic language concepts with children 4 and 5 years of age, and the relationship of language to cognitive development as measured by performance on 10 Piagetian tasks. Factors of age, day care setting or kindergarten, and sex constituted the independent variables. Children 4 years of age proved to…

The study evaluated the ability of six learning disabled adolescents with normal language ability and eight learning disabled adolescents with deficient language skills to appropriately mark ambiguous referents. Subjects were compared with control groups of normally achieving chronologically age matched adolescents and children matched with the…

An investigation of children's metalinguistic and metacognitive competencies examined children's sensitivity to the verbs of cognition in two related studies using a task designed to measure mastery of verbs of saying and meaning. In the task the children hear six short stories, each ending with a statement containing one of the verbs…

Two markedness hypotheses in current language acquisition theory are examined. One view of markedness, the developmental hypothesis, states that the unmarked case is the child's initial hypothesis, i.e., the hypothesis that is set in advance of linguistic data. The developmental hypothesis further predicts that children will proceed in a fixed…

The paper provides an overview of issues in postsecondary education programing for adults and adolescents with learning disabilities. Information provided is derived from a literature review and research and clinical experience. Definitional distinctions between learning disabled (LD) and underachieving students are noted and characteristics (both…

A study examined 12 preschool children's early use of "who,""what," and "which" questions in spontaneous speech. Results indicated that children began to ask object questions before they asked subject questions, and acquired argument questions before adjunct questions. It was suggested that the two results could…

A case study of a 2-year-old progressing normally in speech development provides evidence of suprasegmental marking of the plural, thought to be adopted only in language-impaired children. Acoustic analyses of the durations and intensity of elicited words indicate that the child had adopted a suprasegmental strategy for marking the singular/plural…

The question of why language acquisition is not instantaneous is addressed in terms of two related issues: the logical and the developmental aspects of language acquisition. The role of linguistic theory and research in determining the interplay of these two aspects of grammatical development is examined. It is suggested that the…

Songs, rhymes, and sayings entered in this handbook are particularly useful as basic teaching techniques for babies and small children. Popular and easy to learn, many are simple Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Others are traditional songs and sayings that have been passed on from generation to generation in our culture. Some are appropriate for use…

To examine the effectiveness of a maternal intervention curriculum, 40 mothers and children with varying degrees of language delay were assigned to one of two intervention groups matched on child characteristics. Program impact was assessed through standardized tests (the Sequenced Inventory of Communicative Development to measure whether…

It is in the nature of the development of the self that it becomes possible to maintain continuity in development while providing the basis for change. Language forms the self by making it possible for a user of language to relate himself as agent to others and to the culture. The formation of self depends powerfully on the meanings that a human…

Three experiments on the comprehension and acquisition of temporal terms are described. Methodological innovations were applied to control for possible methodological effects on children's performance. Each experiment involved 24 children aged 3 to 5. In the first experiment, subjects manipulated toys in response to instructions containing the…