In two original articles from the inaugural issue of "Topics in Language Disorders", Berlin, Blank, and Rose proposed a model of dialogue complexity on the basis of a continuum of abstractness defined as perceptual-language distance; Carlson, Gruenewald, and Nyberg proposed a triadic model of academic concepts, student language, and…

While almost all observers agree that young children, older children, and adults differ both in initial rate of acquisition and in the levels of ultimate attainment typically achieved, they continue to disagree over whether the observed patterns are a function of nurture or nature. Is it simply that older starters "do not" do as well because they…

On-line comprehension studies of flexible word-order languages find that noncanonical ("scrambled") structures induce more difficulty than canonical structures [e.g., Hyona & Hujanen, "Q. J. Exp. Psychol." 50A (1997) 841-858], with this difference being attributed to the structural complexity/infrequency of these forms. However, by presenting…

Despite intensive work on language-brain relations, and a fairly impressive accumulation of knowledge over the last several decades, there has been little progress in developing large-scale models of the functional anatomy of language that integrate neuropsychological, neuroimaging, and psycholinguistic data. Drawing on relatively recent…

Two processes, serial and hierarchical, are generally opposed to account for grammatical encoding in language production. In a developmental perspective, the question addressed here is whether the subject-verb agreement during writing is computed serially, once the words are linearly ordered in the sentence, or hierarchically, as soon as the…

The purpose of this study was to (a) examine the concurrent validity of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) with the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), and (b) explore the diagnostic accuracy of the DIBELS in predicting CTOPP performance using suggested and alternative cut-scores. Eighty-six students…

This paper describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of an automated system for predicting the acceptability status of candidate reading-comprehension stimuli extracted from a database of journal and magazine articles. The system uses a combination of classification and regression techniques to predict the probability that a given…

The research reported here tests the claim made in the Input Processing approach to second language (L2) acquisition that interpreting the meaning of language form is essential for learning. This claim has been put forward as an underlying part of the pedagogical package known as Processing Instruction (PI) (VanPatten, 1996, 2002a, 2004). Two…

Purpose: To examine concurrently and retrospectively the language abilities of children with specific reading comprehension deficits ("poor comprehenders") and compare them to typical readers and children with specific decoding deficits ("poor decoders"). Method: In Study 1, the authors identified 57 poor comprehenders, 27 poor decoders, and 98…

The present study used a within-subjects design to examine the effect of the type of written exercise on L2 vocabulary retention. Using input for the meaning and usage of the new words from a specially prepared minidictionary, university intensive English program students (n = 154) practiced target vocabulary in three types of written exercises…

In this exploratory study, we examine the role of literacy in the acquisition of second-language (L2) oral skills through a partial replication of Jenefer Philp's (2003) study of recasts in native speaker (NS)-non-native speaker (NNS) interaction. The principal research question was the following: Is the ability to recall a recast related to the…

Research in second language acquisition and reading in particular indicate that certain literacy skills transfer across languages. This study examines the reading strategies used by advanced Korean and Chinese ESL learners. Particular attention is devoted to how word recognition and processing skills developed in learners' native languages (L1)…

Reform in the fields of adolescent and content area literacy have focused on broadening a definition of literacy beyond the ability to read and write. In a broader definition the language processes of reading, writing, speaking and listening become literacy tools to engage students in the learning of concepts and afford the learner ways to…

The aim of this study was to find ways to improve online reading and vocabulary learning. Various new types of online reading comprehension and vocabulary development programs and tests were compared in this study to consider how useful they may be for guiding individual or classroom L2 vocabulary instruction. It explored how these programs seek…

The accelerating rate of data generation and resulting publications are taxing the ability of scientific investigators to stay current with the emerging literature. This problem, acute in science, is not uncommon in other areas. New approaches to managing this explosion of information are needed. While it is only possible to read one paper or…