As the population of students who are second language learners of English increases in classrooms, content teachers need to find a starting point for understanding the needs of English language learners (ELLs) in their classrooms. This article presents and discusses the three key issues for working with ELLs that can provide that starting point…

Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder resulting from a deletion on chromosome 7. A number of studies have shown that individuals with WS have a superior linguistic profile compared to their non-verbal abilities, however the evidence has been inconclusive, as many studies have disputed such a profile. The vast majority of studies on WS…

The authors present an overview of recent research conducted in the field of language production based on papers presented at the first edition of the International Workshop on Language Production (Marseille, France, September 2004). This article comprises two main parts. In the first part, consisting of three sections, the authors review the…

This article describes methods that have been developed to provide augmentative and alternative communication communicators with better access to narrative conversation. It begins by highlighting the need to provide access to conversational narrative for people with complex communication needs, arguing that this type of conversation plays an…

The evidence of a general achievement gap, and more specifically, a reading gap between African American students and White students is a well documented and alarming phenomenon (Chatterji, 2006; Darling-Hammond, 2004, 2007; Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin & Heilig, 2005; Fishback & Baskin, 1991; Jencks & Phillips, 1998; Haycock, 2001;…

The awareness and knowledge of developmental milestones among health practitioners need to be enhanced to better enable early identification and intervention with children who have delays in development, intellectual deficit, and developmental disabilities and are residents in low-and middle-income countries. To meet this end, a simple one-page…

This report presents findings from the Massachusetts Family Child Care study, a two-year evaluation of the impacts of an early childhood education program on providers and children in family child care. The program--"LearningGames"--is designed to train caregivers to stimulate children's cognitive, language, and social-emotional…

The authors studied the acquisition of nine #sC clusters in 30 Croatian-speaking phonologically disordered children, aged between 3;8-7;0 years, by analysing their renditions of target words elicited in response to visual stimuli presented on a computer screen. Results did not support the idea that a greater jump in sonority from C1 to C2 would…

In this article we examine language processing and development in Catalan or Spanish-speaking children with SLI, focusing on the study of the verb. We analyse the key initial phase of its process of acquisition and aim to define common features of the SLI group that distinguish them from children with normal language development. We intend to…

In this 3-year longitudinal study, the authors tested and extended M. Senechal and J. Le Fevre's (2002) model of the relationships between preschool home literacy practices and children's literacy and language development. Parent-child reading (Home Literacy Environment Questionnaire plus a children's Title Recognition Test) and parental teaching…

Reading to children has been advocated as a way to enhance language and literacy skills (A. G. Bus, M. H. van IJzendoorn, & A. D. Pellegrini, 1995). However, little is known about reading with children under age 3 (K. L. Fletcher & E. Reese, 2005), particularly in at-risk samples (A. van Kleeck, 2003). In the current study of 87 primary caregivers…

The data for this study consisted of a longitudinal corpus of narratives from 17 English second language (L2) children, mean age of 5;4 years at the outset, with first languages (Lls) that do not have definite/indefinite articles (Chinese, Korean and Japanese) and Lls that do have article systems (Spanish, Romanian and Arabic). We examined these…

"Failure Free Reading" is a language development program designed to improve vocabulary, fluency, word recognition, and reading comprehension for Kindergarten through grade 12 students who score in the bottom 15% on standardized tests and who have not responded to conventional beginning reading instruction. The three key dimensions of…

Preschoolers are passionate about learning, and a high-quality preschool program offers rich learning experiences in the areas of language and literacy. This engaging book gives teachers and other professionals fresh ideas, inspiration, and practical tools for integrating age-appropriate literacy instruction into the preschool curriculum.…

Language choice is often studied as choices made by the state at the level of national language planning or as individual choice of language or variety in language use. There has been little research to directly connect these two aspects of language choice. This paper attempts to incorporate the two aspects and other related phenomena in a…