Two member onset consonant clusters with /s/ as the first member (#sC onsets) behave differently from other double onset consonant clusters in English. Phonological explanations of children's consonant cluster production have been posited to predict children's speech acquisition. The aim of this study was to consider the role of the Sonority…

The purpose of the current study is to document phonological change from a multidimensional perspective for a 3-year-old boy with phonological disorder by comparing three measures: (1) accuracy of consonant productions, (2) dynamic assessment, and (3) acoustic analysis. The methods included collecting a sample of the targets /s, [image omitted],…

Students with special needs require unique intervention strategies as they enter infant care and preschool environments. The techniques and materials discussed in this paper are designed especially for the child's unique abilities and disabilities. This paper will also focus on the skills needed for infants who have been identified as requiring…

Our action research study used a mixed design to explore the experiences of 90 pre- and in-service ESL, foreign language (FL), and bilingual teachers in studying and incorporating technology-enhanced language learning (TELL) in their classrooms. Through focus on a TELL graduate course, we considered participants' expectations, experiences, and…

The father's role in children's L1 maintenance and L2 learning is a relatively unexplored area. This study considers the L1 and L2 proficiency of 30 Korean-English late bilinguals who immigrated to New Zealand during their adolescence and how their L1 and L2 proficiency is influenced by the language use of family members. Data were collected…

This paper is concerned with a specific case of L3 acquisition: the starting position for English vowel acquisition by infant German-Italian bilinguals will be investigated in light of prototype theory. The chosen example of triple language contact is characterised by consecutive bilingualism as the basis of L3 acquisition, where the learners' L2…

The present paper explores the connections between theory and research in language development and aesthetic education and their implications for early childhood classroom practice. The present paper posits that arts experiences make a unique and vital contribution to the child's development of language and literacy, as well as to the sense of…

In a crossmodal priming experiment, visual targets (e.g. "RENARD," "fox") were auditorily primed by either an intact [l[schwa][R][schwa]na[R]] "the fox" or reduced form [l[schwa][R]na[R]] "the fox" of the word. When schwa deletion gave rise to an initial cluster that respected the phonotactic constraints of French (e.g. [lapluz] "the lawn" in…

There continues to be a debate whether educators should use brain research to their advantage in the classroom. This debate should not prevent educators from using their new found knowledge toward enhancing their students' learning. By understanding how the brain learns, educators are able to determine what developmental level the child is…

Conventionality and contrast provide the pragmatic basis of language use for adults. These principles play a vital role in the process of acquiring a first language as children learn how to interact using language.

The study tested the effect of three factors on Arab children's (N = 256) phoneme isolation: "phoneme's linguistic affiliation" (standard phonemes vs. spoken phonemes), phoneme position (initial vs. final), and linguistic context (singleton vs. cluster). Two groups of children speaking two different vernaculars were tested. The two vernaculars…

Using the weird word order methodology (Akhtar, 1999), we investigated children's understanding of SVO word order in French, a language with less consistent argument ordering patterns than English. One hundred and twelve French children (ages 2;10 and 3;9) heard either high or low frequency verbs modelled in either SOV or VSO order (both…

Children's early word learning is not usually considered creative in the same sense as artistic productions of later life. Yet early word learning is a creative response to the intrinsic instability of word meaning. As the child acts to participate in her community, she strives for intersubjectivity, manifest in neologisms and under- and…

Although vocalization and mouthing are behaviors frequently performed by infants, little is known about the characteristics of vocalizations that occur with objects, hands, or fingers in infants' mouths. The purpose of this research was to investigate characteristics of vocalizations associated with mouthing in 6 to 9-month-old infants during play…

This literature review will take a focused look at the three currently accepted theoretical foundations upon which two-way bilingual immersion programs are based. Through an examination of research on identity construction in childhood and adolescence, particularly as seen through a critical pedagogical lens, it proposes that there exists a fourth…