Explores four major areas of differences between first- and second-language acquisition (completeness, equipotentiality, previous knowledge, and fossilization) and argues that the theory of Universal Grammar plays a much smaller role in explaining the second-language acquisition process than current research claims. (Author/CB)

Focused on the developmental acquisition of the conditional implication interpretation of "if-then." Knowledge of three aspects of this interpretation was assessed for adults and 3rd-, 5th- and 8th-graders. Results showed the older three groups were significantly more likely to understand conditional implication, with improvement…

A study of how children acquire language suggests that schools and their structured classroom situations offer few opportunities for students to develop linguistic competence. Four approaches to increasing classroom communication are offered. (CB)

A comparison of vocal development in deaf and hearing infants indicates that well-formed syllable production is established in the first 10 months of life by hearing infants but not by deaf infants, suggesting that audition plays an important role in vocal development. (PCB)

The research on metalinguistics in language-impaired children is reviewed indicating that deficits are not all-pervasive but focus on tasks that require sophisticated linguistic abilities or explicit judgments about language form. Such deficits may result from basic encoding problems of cognitive material. (DB)

Three experiments investigated children's acquisition of tense and aspect. Children aged 3-6 years watched and described actions of puppets. The vast majority used appropriate tense, with 3-year-olds using mainly simple past and 4-year-olds encoding most situations with the past progressive. (SKC)

The article looks at syntactic deficiencies involving simple clause structures and grammatical morphology in young children. A framework for understanding the development of simple clause structures is presented followed by a discussion of the correlates of early syntactic development. Procedures to assess and remediate syntactic deficiencies are…

The ISU/ChiLDES bibliographic database, a nonprofit computerized database dedicated to language acquisition, currently consists of nearly 1,900 annotated bibliographic references to journal articles dating back to 1972. (CB)

Two experiments test hypothesis that development of children's comprehension monitoring skills in the referential communication paradigm is based in part on ability to differentiate the literal sentence meaning of speaker's direction from the meaning or intention that speaker wished to convey. (Author/RWB)

Changes in children's categorization behavior between 15 and 21 months of age and the relation of these changes to developments in language, object permanence, and means-end understanding are reported. (PCB)

The study examined whether 10 developmentally delayed children (3:3 to 5:4 years old) would demonstrate superior comprehension for restricted, syntactically incomplete as compared to reduced, syntactically complete forms. The five children functioning at late linguistic stage I demonstrated better comprehension than the early stage I children for…

Discusses the enigma of what and how people know apparently trivial information. Presents an experiment, expected answers, and actual responses to grammar questions to determine the degree of common knowledge in professional trivia. Concludes that further research may bring a clearer understanding of the "tradition" of language teaching…

Discusses (1) how instructional objectives can become a constraint on students' learning, (2) how teachers need to help students overcome their fears about learning, and (3) the danger of fragmenting process approaches to learning into ritualized parts. (SRT)

The symbolic play and social participation of six language-impaired (mean age 6:9) and eight normal language-learning children (mean age 2:9) were compared. Language impaired subjects demonstrated significant deficits in symbolic, adaptive, and integrative play behaviors in comparison with the linguistically equivalent normal subjects. (Author/DB)

Provides a general analysis of the problem of relating private, cognitive mechanisms of individuals to their public behavior. A computational model of language acquisition is offered. Conclusions are related to Piaget's notion of mutual verification and to some general philosophical questions about learning. (Author/RH)