Responds to L. Eubank and K. R. Gregg article (this issue), suggesting that they present a narrow view of language that they wish the field of language acquisition to share. It is suggested that Eubank and Gregg contend that the only thing to be explained is the human capacity for grammatical competence. This belief discounts, misrepresents, or…

Eight general principles are postulated by which immigrants adapt dialectologically to their new surroundings, based mainly on results of a developmental study of six Canadian youngsters in two families who moved to southern England, with supporting evidence from several other studies. (52 references) (Author/LB)

Do infants and young children possess implicit theory of mind that is revealed through their communicative interactions, or are they simply treating their interlocutors as objects to manipulate in service to their own material ends? Paper reviews additional evidence indicating infants in second year of life are capable of communicating for sake of…

Dimensions of two-year-old children's temperament were rated, and elements of children's language development were measured when children were two, three, and seven years old. Extraversion at age two contributed to individual differences in children's receptive language skills at ages three and seven and expressive language skills at age three.…

Argues that the data used to claim that morphosyntactic development of Italian-speaking children are inconsistent with nativist, parameter-setting models of language development is irrelevant to the specific hypothesis being evaluated. (25 references) (JL)

Schachter's "An Error in Error Analysis," is reviewed in light of subsequent research on avoidance. Hypotheses based on her figures suffer from the lack of methodological detail in her original study. To establish whether avoidance is a feasible explanation for learner underproduction, first language form, distribution, and function of…

Samples of the language used by 4 children were recorded longitudinally between 1.5 and 3 years of age. Children's expressions of motion were categorized into expressions involving a source, path, or goal of motion. There were developmental changes, including an increase in the use of words relating to goals as children grew older. (BC)

The article reviews possible effects of the mild, fluctuating hearing loss associated with otitis media with effusion (OME) in children. Two hypotheses, the first assuming an indirect relationship between OME and language mediated by hearing and the second that relationships among OME, hearing, and language may change over time, are presented. (DB)

A study charting the development of 120 participants to define is presented. Participants were asked to define eight concrete and eight abstract nouns. Results indicate that there are significant differences in the way concrete and abstract nouns are defined. (32 references) (GLR)

Describes the acquisition and use of a Chinese metalanguage with which ambiguous spoken words are graphically contextualized. The metalanguage is composed of strategies that range from the actual writing of the Chinese graph (character) to those where the graph is accommodated in a verbal presentation. (12 references) (JL)

Focuses on conducting study of acquisition of communicative competence by preschool and primary grade children. Description of methodology for setting up a longitudinal study to look at acquisition of communicative competence is provided with special attention given to different types of gestures and rules researcher may encounter when assessing…

Examines verb learning in children in their second year of life learning verbs in various pragmatic contexts. Results are discussed in terms of the different learning processes involved in acquiring nouns and verbs and in terms of a social-pragmatic view of language acquisition. (34 references) (GLR)

The role of word class and gender during lexical access in language production was studied. The results indicated a distinction between prelexical (word class) and postlexical (gender) features, a distinction that could most naturally be implemented in a parallel-interactive processing network. (33 references) (Author/LB)

This study tested the production of 18 Spanish consonants by 120 Mexican-American preschool children (ages 3-5), to determine the age of acquisition of Spanish consonants. Data are provided on percent of correct production of each sound at six different age levels and are graphically illustrated to compare age of acquisition with another study's…

This report documents phonological changes in a pair of identical twin boys diagnosed as language delayed. The boys were evaluated four times between the ages of three and four. Speech samples were analyzed for phonetic inventories, phonological process use, and syllabic shapes. Observed changes in their speech generally followed normal…