Examines the form that poetic function assumes in American Sign Language, a language that has a structural organization different from oral languages and where the possibilities for poetic organization are radically different. Examples of a complex type of composition called art-sign distinguished by three levels of structure are analyzed.…

The author looks at some trends that mark our worship. He states that liturgical models are beginning to develop: models of hospitality, the faith of the community, the challenge of the gospel, or the otherness of God. (Author/KC)

The writing style of many college students is deplorably florid; in the hope of sounding "educated" they use long words where short ones will do just as well. (JD)

The article discusses several linguistic and nonlinguistic teaching strategies to foster language acquisition and increase spontaneous language in preschool children with language delays. Techniques include having the child complete unfinished sentences and intentionally violating an expected routine to elicit the child's language. (DB)

Matrix training strategies were used to teach three severely mentally retarded children syntactic rules for combining known words into two- and three-word utterances. Training only a limited number of responses was sufficient to promote recombinative generalization in the trained modality and transfer to untrained responses in the opposite…

Using two modes of production, writing and dictation, the study compared the story production, coherence, and fluency of learning-disabled (LD) children (N=47) with that of normal-achieving and low-achieving subjects across three grade levels. Among results were that mode of production had no effect upon story production or fluency for any…

An approach to treating mild to moderately severe cases of the speech disturbance, apraxia, focuses on helping the patient establish a conscious knowledge of how an accurate response is produced through a five-phase training program. (DB)

The concurrent and predictive relations of sensorimotor behavior and play to language in the second year were assessed among 19 preterm and 20 full-term infants tested at 13 1/2 and 22 months of age. Numerous associations between play and language were identified; sensorimotor behavior and language in the same age period were relatively loosely…

The nature of word-finding deficits among children with learning disabilities is analyzed; research on the relationship between word-finding ability and reading is reviewed; and classroom implications regarding teacher language, student verbal fluency and flexibility, and student social perception are noted. (CL)

Eighteen language disabled kindergarteners participated in a five-month intervention program emphasizing the development of expressive grammar. Ss made significant gains in expressive syntax, receptive morphology, expressive language, and one aspect of receptive language. Control Ss only made significant gains in one aspect of receptive language.…

Topic continuing and nontopic continuing utterances produced by three productively language-disordered preschoolers were analyzed. Results suggested that Ss produced a proportion of adjacent utterances comparable to proportions previously reported for children with normal production language skills and that they relied on an imitation strategy to…

Compares verbal output of 12 adolescents with autism or mental retardation with adults using two different sets of verbal behaviors. Results indicates that when adults used a facilitative rather than a directive (or question-based) style, Ss indicated a significantly higher proportion of main topics and produced significantly higher proportions of…

Explores the difficulty in defining cliche and distinguishing it from other idiomatic and indelible expressions in the English language. (HTH)

Conclusion of a two-part article. (SK)