The mother of a deaf preschool girl recounts how a pet kitten found by her daughter has provided the occasion and motivation for much language practice. (GW)

Reports on three research studies which investigate different aspects of some of the factors thought to inhibit language development. (RB)

Four essays are presented on the subject of bilingualism, with the specific purpose of providing information for teachers about the ways in which they can help language minority children sustain their first language while acquiring English. After an introduction by G. Richard Tucker, the following papers are presented: (1) "Bilingualism: Its…

Questions asked in five play sessions by each of eight children aged 1.6 to 3.0 were analyzed for usage of the wh-interrogatives. About 93% of utterances using "what" and "where" were formulaic constructions (e.g., "Where's NP?" and "What's that thing?"). In order to determine whether children were…

The author reviews literature on the acquisition of language in bilingual children, and discusses issues in the assessment of language impairment in this population. Cited among findings of bilingual research are that children can and do acquire more than one language during early childhood and the acquisition of two languages can be parallel, but…

An explanatory linguistic theory attempts to capture and explain the universal nature of human language, to choose among possible grammars of each human language, and to account for the linguistic constraints involved in language acquisition. Discourse theory, like linguistic theory, must be mentalistic in that it seeks to account for mental…

Early bilingualism of many young children is characterized by an apparent mixture of languages. Because of the variety of patterns they follow and the lack of empirical data available it is difficult to make generalizations. However, the speech of individual children can be examined for insights into early bilingualism. To this purpose, a study…

Intended for those working with deaf blind children, the document discusses strategies for developing language. Information on objectives, materials, and methods are presented for 10 levels of language development: the nonresponsive child, the child with differentiated crying, the child who demonstrates "stimulus-response" behavior to situational…

The document presents procedures to teach and test the understanding of class, sequential order, and space in handicapped children. Sections briefly address the following topics: art symbols and thinking, left and right hemisphere thinking, testing and developing the concept of class, testing and developing concepts of space, testing and…

This brief overview of child language acquisition begins with a discussion of the affective and cognitive dimensions of the transition period from babbling to speech. Three theories of language acquisition--reinforcement theory, social learning theory, and "innate mechanism" theory--are reviewed. Several theories of the function of language,…

AN EXPERIMENTAL PILOT PROJECT WAS ESTABLISHED DURING THE 1962-63 SCHOOL YEAR IN VARIOUS ISRAELI SECONDARY SCHOOLS TO EXAMINE PROBLEMS IN TEACHING WRITTEN COMPOSITION. THE PROJECT USED EXPERIMENTAL AND CONTROL GROUPS COMPARING TWO SYSTEMS OF INSTRUCTION--(1) THE ASSIGNMENT AND CORRECTION OF COMPOSITIONS, AND (2) A STRUCTURED SYSTEM OF…

To explore the effects of the use of sign language as an intervention technique to facilitate the development of expressive and receptive communication skills, manual sign language (Signing Exact English) was employed with 12 multihandicapped, language delayed and/or nonverbal Ss (18 to 36 months old). Sign language was studied both as a…

Six Samoan children ranging in age from 2 to 16 were the subjects of a study to document the spontaneous production of the deictic verbs "sau" ("to come") and "aumai" ("to bring/give"). "Aumai" appears to be used before "sau" and is generally used more frequently than "sau." Imperatives with "aumai" tend to be directed to higher status persons or…