UK professionals use a range of intervention approaches to promote communication development in pre-school deaf children by influencing the familys' interaction style. This investigation surveyed the approaches used and explored how these translated into specific practices. An online questionnaire was developed and reviewed by a panel of experts.…

I propose that the course of development in first and second language acquisition is shaped by two types of processing pressures--internal efficiency-related factors relevant to easing the burden on working memory and external input-related factors such as frequency of occurrence. In an attempt to document the role of internal factors, I consider…

Expressive language problems are common among children with Down syndrome (DS). In typically developing (TD) children, gestures play an important role in supporting the transition from one-word utterances to two-word utterances. As far as we know, an overview on the role of gestures to support expressive language development in children with DS is…

Because of its structural characteristics, specifically the prevalence of verb types in infant-directed speech and frequent pronoun-dropping, the Italian language offers an attractive opportunity to investigate the predictive effects of input frequency and positional salience on children's acquisition of nouns and verbs. We examined this…

The present article investigates the acquisition of Manner of Articulation (MoA) contrasts in child language production. We analyzed spontaneous longitudinal speech data of four German and six Dutch 1- to 3-year-olds. The data suggest that the acquisition of MoA contrasts is influenced by various co-occurrence constraints at the word level.…

Purpose: This study reports age 5 morphology and syntax skills in late talkers identified at age 2 (n = 34) and typically developing comparison children (n = 20). Results: The late talkers manifested significant morphological delays at ages 3 and 4 relative to comparison peers. Based on the 14 morphemes analyzed at age 5, the only significant…

The primary aim of the current study was to explore whether non-linguistic conventions, especially gesture, have a significant impact on children's vocabulary learning. Fifty male and female Iranian children aged between 3 and 6 years of age (mean age?=?3.5) from two classes of a language institute were taught a set of lexical items using two…

The embodied-cognition approach views cognition and language as grounded in daily sensorimotor child-environment interactions. Therefore, the attainment of motor milestones is expected to play a role in cognitive-linguistic development. Early attainment of unsupported sitting and independent walking indeed predict better spatial cognition and…

This article makes the case for an approach to reflective practice (RP) that is both evidence-based and data-led. We argue that, while RP within the field of TESOL enjoys a relatively high level of acceptance and status (perhaps even an orthodoxy), it has little corresponding knowledge base that demonstrates how RP "gets done". We…

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) often experience a low Quality of Life (QoL). We studied if IQ, early language development, current autism traits, and daily Executive Functions (EFs) are related to QoL in children (aged 8-12 years) with ASD (N = 120) and typically developing (TD) children (N = 76). Children with ASD showed a lower…

This paper investigates the development of discourse referencing in spoken Cantonese of fifteen deaf/hard-of-hearing children studying in a sign bilingual and co-enrolment education programme in a mainstream setting in Hong Kong. A comparison of their elicited narratives with those of the hearing children and adults shows that, despite a delay in…

Friendships and play provide children with opportunities for mutual engagement, which both require and facilitate children's language use. Modality is a semantic system in the language associated with children's learning. One way in which modality is realised is through linguistic expressions which allow speakers to moderate the degree of…

This study investigates the development of plural morphology in Jordanian Arab children, and explores the role of the predictability, transparency, productivity, and frequency of different plural forms in determining the trajectory that children follow in acquiring this complex inflectional system. The study also re-examines the development of the…

A number of factors influence the speech and language development of young children. Delays in the development of speech and language can have repercussions for school attainment and life chances. This paper is based on a survey of 3- to 4-year-old children in the city of Stoke-on-Trent in the UK. It analyses the data collected from 255 children…

Purpose: Students with intellectual disability often struggle with significant language delays or impairments and can require explicit instruction in language skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of direct instruction on the use of and response to prepositions by 3 elementary school students with intellectual…