This paper reviews evidence for and against imitation as a factor in the acquisition of syntax. It is concluded that the effects of imitation of children's speech are too pervasive to be dismissed as irrelevant. An important question is how a child extracts grammatical information from imitated sequences. (CHK)

The effect of four social learning conditions on early language acquisition was explored, along with comparisons between learning whole words and learning the component sounds of the words. Subjects were 20 infants aged 9 to 15 months. (MS)

Reports a survey of practices in reading readiness programs and concludes that in regard to reading readiness, the close relationship between speech and reading suggests that the use of language-based programs is more promising than the use of non-language-based programs. (JM)

A study to determine the degrees of mastery by middle-class second grade children of seventeen syntactic competencies and to compare their oral and written syntactic attainment. (DD)

A study based on error analysis and longitudinal observation which explores the possibility of stages of acquisition of spelling. (DD)

A program utilizing a multisensory approach and active involvement was used to teach 12 trainable mentally retarded children (6-19 years old) the correct use of adjectives, polars, and locative prepositions. (DB)

A review of the literature and research on language facilitation with residential retarded populations considers interactive models for facilitating language, the use of communication facilitators, and the content of such training. Two studies demonstrating the beneficial effects of daily caregiver interaction on communication skills are stressed.…

Concludes that the PLAI is a unique test that can be very useful in assessing children's ability to deal with the language of instruction. (FL)

Reviews evidence supporting the Contrastive Hypothesis, revealing little support for the hypothesis that young children automatically assume that every two words in their lexicons contrast. Theoretical problems with the positions that children assign words to semantic fields as they are acquiring them and that innovations are used to fill lexical…

Examination of the effect of two linguistic factors on kindergarten through fourth-grade students' understanding of idioms indicated that the younger subjects better understood syntactically frozen idioms than those presented in various syntactic forms, while older subjects comprehended both kinds. (Author/CB)

A 121-citation annotated bibliography describes journal articles, books, and other documents regarding bilingualism and deafness in six sections: sociolinguistic aspects; linguistic aspects; psycholinguistic aspects; language acquisition; language policy and bilingual education; and language attitudes. (CB)

Discusses a study that examines which combination of animate and inanimate actors (anyone or anything performing an action) and patients (the thing that is the object of action) two-year-olds view as prototypical. Results suggest that the actor category is usually acquired first for prototypical sentences with animate actors and inanimate…

Describes a study that investigates the order of acquisition of case-marked pronouns in Hebrew among 105 children between two and five years of age. Results indicate that children begin using case-marked pronouns as early as age two and that the stage of morphological development parallels that of English-speaking children. (SED)

Discusses two studies that examine whether children are sensitive to the fact that adjectives and nouns differ in the contrast they imply. Results show that by age four, children are sensitive to this. Implications for children's use of referential language and word learning strategies are discussed. (SED)