Williams syndrome (WS) is characterized by apparent relative strengths in language, facial processing and social cognition but by profound impairment in spatial cognition, planning and problem solving. Following recent research which suggests that individuals with WS may be less linguistically able than was once thought, in this paper we begin to…

Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences (1983) suggests that human cognitive competence is best described as a set of abilities, talents, or mental skills. All human beings possess each of these intelligences to some extent, but individuals differ in the levels of development and nature of their combination. The seven intelligences…

As Thailand's exports to other Asian countries and to the West increase, the status of English as the language for trade and communication has gained more importance. Initial investigation of postgraduate (science and engineering) students' needs at Chulalongkorn University indicates that the skills the students want to improve most are listening,…

The purpose of this study was to compare low readers and high readers in adult basic education (ABE) programs in New Jersey in terms of demographic characteristics, motives for enrolling in ABE, and desire to learn certain functional competencies. Fifty-two low readers and 52 high readers responded to items on the Interview Schedule of the Adult…

Secondary students of French interviewed a researcher posing as a French speaker. Error patterns and structures used were analyzed. Many errors were apparently due to interference; many others were apparently the result of reduction processes. Results suggested that errors might be corrected in terms of comprehensibility to a native speaker.…

This paper examines the relationship between linguistic and communicative competence in terms of the student's acquisition of French as a foreign language and the interface of testing for each competence in the context of achievement testing. Reaching an acceptable level of communicative competence requires practice and guidance in understanding…

This research is based on the assumption that a Spanish/English bilingual is aware of the phonological and semantic relatedness of the many hundreds of pairs of transparently cognate items in the two languages. This awareness is linguistically significant in that it is reflected in the internalized grammar of the bilingual. The bilingual speaker…

An exploration of the linguistic patterns and conversational strategies of adult learners was conducted to clarify the relationship between individuals' oral communicative ability and their levels of proficiency in the nonoral literate modes of reading and writing. The connection between social class and language development was also examined.…

This summary reports briefly on the progress of KEEP research on cognitive processes, specifically the covert verbal and visual activity of elementary school children. Preliminary research results regarding the infrequent use by children of covert verbal ability, or verbal mediational processes (unless prompted) are discussed. Informal…

As part of an investigation of ways to increase the linguistic awareness and communication skills of community college students from a variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds, a study was conducted to determine if poetry study would enhance the word comprehension sensitivity of bilingual and bidialectal students. The 38 students involved in…

Previous interpretations of male/female discourse were examined in light of new data generated from a study of intercultural mixed-sex dyads. Eleven dyads, each consisting of a Chinese and an American subject, were videotaped in 30-minute conversations about courtship in different cultures. The tapes were content analyzed to obtain information on…

After discussing the differences in the physical, social, and attitudinal environments of advantaged and disadvantaged children, this paper describes the educational settings and intervention practices that were designed as part of the Carolina Abecedarian Project to assist young disadvantaged children in attaining educational competence. An…

Language teaching typically reflects current research, and, until quite recently, grammatical competence (e.g., in the Chomskyan sense) was the major target of linguistic research. Emphasizing the spoken language, the term "fluency," as applied to the foreign language performance of a language learner, is correlated to foreign language…

Dissatisfied with the linguist's concentration on structure, sociolinguistically inclined linguists turned to anthropology to give an empirical orientation to linguistics. Almost at the same time anthropologists were trying to give a more theoretical orientation to their subject of study, and the structural methods was being sought as the remedy.…

The linguistic abilities demonstrated by second grade students show a high level of competence in the use of syntactic structures and lexicon. This report describes and interprets, in terms of language function, the talking and writing of fifteen Australian children. Transcripts of conversations provide the basis for the linguistic analysis and…