Discusses evidence that children's drawings and sketches are a part of their writing process and that stress on speaking and writing is superior to stress on reading and listening in sponsoring verbal growth. (DD)

This study attempted to test the notion that the reinforcing stimuli which maintain high rates of speech may not consist solely of events extrinsic to the person but may involve (sensory) stimulation generated by the behavior itself. (Author)

Discusses some of the problems of language education and concludes that during the middle school years, children are potentially very aware of language and receptive to new ways of exploring and exploiting it. More needs to be learned about this critical stage of language development. (JM)

Signed English was successfully used to teach language to four totally nonverbal, severely mentally retarded adolescents. (DB)

Four nonverbal autistic boys (ages 11-16) were successfully taught sign language action-object phrases following an intervention composed of prompting, fading, stimulus rotation, and differential reinforcement. The skill generalized to new situations. (Author/DB)

The 15-month study followed the vocal development of five handicapped (Down Syndrome, hydrocephalus, and spina bifida) hospital reared infants. Results suggested that only the two less handicapped infants demonstrated use of sounds for social interaction and that the other infants used vocalization primarily as protest or self-stimulation.…

The review of research on language development in young children with Down's syndrome indicates that these children develop language in the same sequence as children without Down's syndrome, but that they experience delays. Educators should initiate language programs as early as possible, enlist parent participation, and select normative language…

The study compared effects of toy play and computer activity on vocalization and social play in dyads consisting of a disabled preschooler and nondisabled peer. Computer activity was as effective or slightly more effective than toy play in stimulating vocalizations and social play. (Author/DB)

The study demonstrated the utility of the alternating treatments design in determining the most efficacious language training approach with mentally retarded children. Oral communication, total communication, and modified total communication were each used with two children in three trials. The preferred approach was consistent within each subject…

Left-hemisphere language specialization in right-handed children was tested in children previously classified as consistent or nonconsistent in their hand preference. Results showed that both male hand preference groups demonstrated asymmetric interference in dual task tapping performance. In contrast, only females associated with consistency in…

Thirty-three kindergartners from two social classes were tested on an array of prereading and oral language skills. Prereading skills were found to be highly intercorrelated and to relate to ability to provide decontextualized definitions for words. Oral language measures of decontextualized skill correlated within task, but not across tasks. (PCB)

The article describes possible reasons, other than stuttering, for children's disfluent speech, presents typical case profiles for different types of disfluency, and suggests appropriate case management procedures. (Author/DB)

The study with 60 autistic children (between 3 and 9-years-old) found that children with high-verbal imitation skill did equally well in any of four different modes of language training presentation while those with low-verbal imitation skill did less well in all modes and poorest in the speech-alone condition. (Author/DB)

A study examined lexical specificity, the occurrence of pragmatic information, and a syntactic aspect (presence or absence of inversion) of the acquisition of both indirect and direct wh-questions in children aged five through eight years. (MSE)

The effectiveness of a mand-model plus correction procedure in developing requesting behavior by two severely or moderately retarded adults was assessed in two experiments. Both subjects acquired the behavior and maintained it (with reduced fluency) at two-month followup. (Author/DB)