Uncertainty was researched as a perceptual structure which mediates the transition from sensorimotor activity to language. The guiding notions are that the attentional system is geared to uncertainty from the beginning of life and that a speaker's language use is coordinated with this system as it emerges. (Author)

An interview with Duane Rumbaugh and Mary Ann Romski, researchers on the use of alternative communication systems for severely and profoundly retarded persons, focuses on applications from their primate research and the use of a computerized keyboard system to investigate language acquisition in severely retarded persons. (CL)

Research (1968-1978) on the development of generative grammar in mentally retarded students is summarized for such topics as noun pluralization and suffixes, pronouns, adjectives, articles, verbs, prepositions, interrogatives, and generalization. Unresolved issues in generalization are noted. (CL)

Children exhibiting a referential orientation seem more likely to acquire new object names than nonreferentially oriented children. Also, children's selection of words may be influenced by the phonological structure of the words. (Author/RH)

Investigates sign learning as a function of sign translucency (ease of relating a sign to its referents) and referential concreteness. Naive sign learners attempted to learn a list of sign-referent pairs. Signs high in translucency and referents high in concreteness facilitated learning; low levels of each variable inhibited learning. (Author/PJM)

The results showed that all the Ss had normal hearing on the monaural speech tests; however, there was indication of central auditory nervous system dysfunction in the language dominant hemisphere, inferred from the dichotic tests, for those Ss displaying echolalia. (Author)

Auditory discrimination of voiceless fricatives was studied in 200 Ss between the ages of four and six and one-half years. (Author)

The use of two devices through which utterances are related to ongoing discourse, focus, and substituion operations, were observed in three language disordered children (3 and 4 years old). (Author)

The role of home economics in the education of handicapped children is examined, and the importance of incorporating language and reading instruction in home economics activities is emphasized. The use of photographs and videotapes in teaching manipulative skills is described. (CL)

Correlational analyses indicated that age of acquisition estimates, codability, and retrieval speed were highly related to each other and significantly related to most of the semantic dimensions. Regression analyses revealed that codability, meaningfulness, and imagery each contributed signficantly to the variance of retrieval speed. (Author)

The case of a deaf preschool child whose parents and teacher cooperated in a Total Communication and Signed English approach is cited. A record of the child's utterances is presented to illustrate growth in language to a level near that of a hearing child. (CL)

Concludes that (1) conditions that precipitate vocabulary acquisition (appealing sound, "adultness," strong emotion, peer usage) are closely associated with both social affect and social environment and that (2) words are rarely learned as a result of traditional teaching methods. (FL)

Draws implications for the teaching and learning of writing from the language acquisition of children, based on the contention that human capacities for acquiring language do not change qualitatively as people mature. (DD)

The author advocates using the response-centered teaching approach (in which a teacher attempts to draw out of students their natural reaction to idea, event, and value found in the work of literature) with exceptional adolescents. (SBH)

The study investigated the development of language interrogatives in ten deaf children (ages six to eight years) through a program using expanded question structures. (Author/PHR)