The study investigated the relationship among the grammatical distinctions produced by three language-delayed or language-disordered children on the expressive part of the Northwestern Syntax Screening Test, the Carrow Elicited Language Inventory, and the Menyuk Sentences and those generated in a spontaneous language sample. (PHR)

Reports on an experiment, performed on seven children, designed to show that children understand "here" and "there" with the self as reference point before they understand words such as these with reference to other speakers as reference points. (Author/AM)

Two golden rules for teachers of young children are (1) work, speak, and act with complete naturalness, and (2) never try to teach language per se; rather, teach life (joy, sorrow, work, play, differentiation, self-awareness, etc.) by involving the children in situations and activities that are highly significant to them. (NQ)

This study examined language ability in children of the same mental age who differed in their level of cognitive development. Subjects were 68 first-graders, 33 male, 35 female, from a predominantly middle-class elementary school. (Author/SB)

Investigated the role of peer language imitation in preschool children's vocabulary acquisition. Study I involved natural observations of children in day care situations. In Study II, children were introduced by naive peers was observed. (Author/SB)

The role of comprehension training in the selective imitation of indirect-direct object sentences was assessed for six 4-year-old children. A modeling condition resulted in normal usage of indirect-direct object sentences for five of six subjects, but reversed usage was not obtained when modeling was reversed. (MS)

Investigates the ability of adults and children to understand aspects of semantic ambiguity. (DD)

This paper reports an investigation into the acquisition of indirect object constructions by English children aged 5-10. Sentences having a prepositional "to" phrase containing the indirect object, and following the direct object, were acquired before sentences where the indirect object preceded the direct object. (CHK)

Mildred Milliea has researched and developed the only Micmac language program in the Maritimes. The Micmac alphabet with equivalent sounds, the numerical system, and examples of new Micmac words are given. (NQ)

This study examined the productivity and representation of past-tense marking by 11 6-year-old children with and 22 children without specific language impairment (SLI). Patterns of past-tense marking as a function of a word's phonological composition and inflectional frequency were the same for the SLI children and the 11 control children matched…

Explores the prospects for a "general nativist" theory of first- and second-language acquisition (SLA), outlines a modular acquisition device not including Universal Grammar, and considers the role of universal grammar in the emergence of a first language (L1). (50 references) (Author/CK)

Analyzed naturalistic data from 12 2- to 3-year-old children and their mothers to assess the relative contribution of complexity and input frequency to wh-question acquisition. Results suggests that the relationship between acquisition and complexity may be a by-product of the high correlation between complexity and the frequency with which…

Investigated young children's ability to use narrative contexts to infer the meanings of novel vocabulary terms. Two groups of 15 7-and 8-year-olds participated; children with normally developing reading comprehension skills and children with weak reading comprehension skill. Results are discussed. (Author/VWL)

Investigates one plausible source of the emergence of phonological awareness--phonological neighborhood density in a group of 5-year-old children, most of whom were pre-readers. Subjects with a high vocabulary age showed neighborhood density effects in a rhyme oddity task, but 5-year-olds with lower vocabulary ages did not. (Author/VWL)

In three experiments, 9-month-olds were given the opportunity to induce specific phonological patterns from manipulated syllable structure, consonant voicing position, and segmental position. Infants were then familiarized with fluent speech containing words that either fit or violated these patterns. Subsequent testing revealed that infants…