Research suggests that children with behavioural difficulties exhibit "positive illusory bias" (PIB), in which they overestimate their competencies leading to a perception of self that is more positive than the perceptions held by their peers, parents or teachers. However, research to date has focused on children of elementary school age…

Vocabulary plays an important role in reading comprehension in both the L1 and the L2 (Murphy, 2018). In measuring vocabulary knowledge, however, researchers typically focus on mono-lexical units where vocabulary assessments tend not to take into account multi-word expressions which include phrasal verbs, collocations, and idioms. Omitting these…

This study investigated the systematic and principled teaching of foreign language (FL) literacy in two young learner classrooms in England. Over the course of 23 weeks, two classes of 9-11 year olds (N = 45) learned spoken and written language through an integrated pedagogy. The underpinning rationale was to explore principled ways of teaching FL…

Purpose: We investigated four theoretically based latent variable models of word learning in young school-age children. Method: One hundred sixty-seven English-speaking second graders with typical development from three U.S. states participated. They completed five different tasks designed to assess children's creation, storage, retrieval, and…

Vocabulary's relationship to reading proficiency is frequently cited as a justification for the assessment of L2 written receptive vocabulary knowledge. However, to date, there has been relatively little research regarding which modalities of vocabulary knowledge have the strongest correlations to reading proficiency, and observed differences have…

Reading and writing are distinct skill areas that influence each other across development. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are noted to exhibit challenges in both skill areas, though relatively few studies have examined relationships between reading and writing skills. This study adopted a reading-to-writing framework to examine if…

The home-learning environment (HLE) is critical for young children's early learning skills, yet little research has focused on HLEs in indigenous communities. This study examined the role of the HLE of 41 whanau (New Zealand Maori families and community) in relation to their young children's (M = 4 years, 4 months) early learning skills. Parents…

This study examined the quantity and quality of parental linguistic input to toddlers with moderate hearing loss (MHL) compared with toddlers with normal hearing (NH). The linguistic input to eighteen toddlers with MHL and twenty-four toddlers with NH was examined during a 10-minute free-play activity in their home environment. Results showed that…

Objective: Our objective was to evaluate the efficacy of the Sitting Together and Reaching to Play (START-Play) intervention in young infants with neuromotor disorders. Method: This randomized controlled trial compared usual care-early intervention (UC-EI) with START-Play plus UC-EI. Analyses included 112 infants with motor delay (55 UC-EI, 57…

This study investigated whether the ability to learn word-object associations following minimal exposure (i.e., fast mapping) was associated with concurrent and later language abilities in children with ASD. Children who were poor learners at age 3½ had significantly lower receptive language abilities than children who successfully learned the new…

Receptive identification is usually taught in matching-to-sample format, which entails the presentation of an auditory sample stimulus and several visual comparison stimuli in each trial. Conflicting recommendations exist regarding the order of stimulus presentation in matching-to-sample trials. The purpose of this study was to compare acquisition…

Purpose: This study reports validity evidence for an English translation of the LittlEARS Early Speech Production Questionnaire (LEESPQ). The LEESPQ was designed to support early spoken language outcome monitoring in young children who are deaf/hard of hearing. Methods: Data from 90 children with normal hearing, ages 0-18 months, are reported.…

Theory of mind describes the ability to engage in perspective-taking, infer mental states, and predict intentions, behavior, and actions in others. Theory of mind performance is associated with foundational cognitive and socioemotional skills, including verbal ability (receptive and expressive vocabulary), executive function (inhibitory control…

In this study, it is aimed to compare the early literacy skills of children with cochlear implants with 60-72 months of preschool and/or special education to the results of children with normal hearing. For this purpose, the following questions were sought. In this study, "Demographic Form" containing the general information of volunteer…

This study examined the relations between receptive language development and other developmental domains of preschoolers from low-income families, through an inter-cultural perspective involving the United States and Turkey. A total of 471 children and their caregivers participated in Turkey, while 287 participated in the United States. Children's…