A study of 13 14-month-old and 12 18-month-old children found that the younger infants relied more on gestures and fussing to express their physical wants, whereas the older infants relied more on vocal responses, especially when clarification of their wants was needed. (MDM)

Recommends that curriculum and instruction be designed to engage students in using the tools of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Describes a curriculum framework that takes into account adolescents' language development and uses language to integrate various academic subjects. (PAM)

This case study documents the emergence of reading ability in an extremely precocious reader between the ages of two years, seven months and three years, two months. At the end of this period, his word recognition ability was at the late first-grade level. Writing skills began to develop when he was four years old. (DB)

Addresses recent advances in research and theory that relate to language shift in early childhood, cognitive, and academic consequences of bilingualism and second-language learning, and theoretical models for conceptualizing the development of bilingualism and second-language learning. Contains annotated bibliography. (47 references) (LET)

This article reviews research on children's development of cognition, memory, and language; development of knowledge about the legal system; developmental and motivational factors influencing children's willingness to make sexual abuse reports in legal settings; reports of abusive touch; and strategies used to prepare children for medical…

The complexity of teaching second-language vocabulary is illustrated with numerous examples of words that do not have an exact reciprocal from one language to another. Some insurmountable differences are cited, and the rationale for usage of an inaccurate but culturally acceptable word is offered. (13 references) (LB)

Results of a longitudinal case study of a monolingual Sesotho-speaking boy show that rule-assigned tone on subject markers is marked appropriately by age two. Underlying tonal representations on verb roots are learned gradually over time, showing an early Default High tone pattern. (Contains 51 references.) (Author)

Discusses importance of adults asking questions that encourage development of children's expressive language. Compared the responses of 4- to 5-year olds asked only closed questions with those of children asked verbal reflective questions in which the questioner restated part of the child's previous utterance. Found that closed questions generated…

Reprints a talk presented to teacher trainers in 1990 that surveys thinking on language acquisition, specifically on the transition from orality to literacy, focusing on Montessori connections and applications. (HTH)

This article reviews literature and research on otitis media, focusing on definitions; occurrence, including such influences as age, socioeconomic status, genetics, child care situation, feeding techniques, and sex; fluctuating hearing loss; psychological, linguistic, and cognitive development; and developmental deficits in speech, language,…

This paper describes the strategies used by an expert in communication as he analyzed conversations between an eight-year-old hearing-impaired girl and her teacher. Protocol analysis is used to identify a pattern in the analysis, beginning with social conventions and proceeding to discourse genre, sentences, and finally, individual words. (DB)

Reports on a series of recent research projects concerning the principles of additive and subtractive bilingualism in Canadian schools and the probability of minorities and majorities successfully learning a second language based on their overall mastery in their first language. (60 references) (GLR)

Maintains that, when children engage in make-believe play, they not only derive enjoyment from it, but they also practice a wide range of basic skills that involve invention, imagination, independence, and language development. (BB)

Linguistic and cognitive development of 26 premature and 27 full-term infants was studied longitudinally over the first 3 years of life. Patterns of lexical and cognitive development did not differ substantially between groups, nor did standard language test measures indicate differences at the study's end except with very low birthweight…

Examines the perception of four English vowels by adult native speakers of German. The role of foreign-language experience in the perception of second-language vowels was examined through labeling responses to members of synthetic continua in which vowel duration and spectrum were varied factorily. (42 references) (GLR)