The process by which 55 preschool children acquire the meanings of dimensional and expressive terms was investigated in relation to Eve Clark's semantic feature hypothesis. (Author/MP)

Four speech deficient mentally retarded children (3-5 years old) with Down's Syndrome were taught imitative verbal responses by two methods based on operant conditioning principles. (Author/CL)

This study compared 41 students with severe behavioral disorders (attending either day or residential programs) on language measures. No significant differences were found between groups; both groups showed receptive and expressive language deficits. However, teachers rated students in the day program higher on conversational skills. Also,…

Investigated associations between expressive language and symbolic play in deaf children with deaf parents or with hearing parents, and hearing children with hearing parents. Defined three language level groups. Hearing status was associated with duration of symbolic play. Higher language levels were associated with more canonically sequenced and…

The Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-Preschool was compared to an author-developed structured task activity in determining the grammatical ability of 20 Spanish-speaking preschoolers. The structured task activity was a better means for obtaining information concerning the preschoolers' productive knowledge of grammatical forms. (CR)

Shows that variation in the composition of the lexicon at token-level between more and less formal oral styles is identical to the variation between written and oral discourse. The article argues that speakers deictically anchor their utterances in a non-linguistic spatio-temporal context and that the degree of context-dependence is reflected in…

A special education teacher describes how she used dialogue journals both to communicate with her emotionally disturbed students and improve the students' writing skills. An inset summarizes the research on dialogue journals. An analysis of topics written about by students including requests, feelings, hopes, family, school, peers, and wishes is…

This paper reports on a 15-year follow-up of the linguistic and cognitive profile of a woman with standard trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). The follow-up found recent rapid deterioration in receptive and productive language skills. However, basic phonological and morphosyntactic skills are preserved. Her changing profile mirrors that found in aging…

Provides an account of the functions of "sumimasen," one of the expressions used for apology and thanks in everyday Japanese conversation. The study observes the different socio-cultural contexts in which this expression occurs, using a database of 10 hours of daily conversation. The study attempts to relate "sumimasen" to…

This article suggests that the receptive language abilities of children with AIDS and HIV infection might be less affected than their expressive and non-verbal skills. It proposes an instructional delivery framework for children with HIV/AIDS that focuses on reading, arithmetic/mathematics, handwriting instruction, and the use of computers.…

Four developmentally delayed preschoolers were taught action-object responses in receptive and expressive language modalities, using matrix-training procedures. Acquisition of a word combination rule was facilitated by the use of familiar lexical items, whereas subsequent acquisition of new lexical knowledge was enhanced by couching training in a…

This study examined the relationship between 20 hearing-impaired sixth and seventh grade students' ability to write syntactically correct sentences in two formats, one structured and one unstructured. Students generated more syntactically correct sentences in the structured format with little correlation between performance on the two formats.…

When assessed for speech/language development, 31 children (age 1-12) fitted with endotracheal tubes for more than 3 months beginning by age 13 months showed overall language functioning within normal limits and commensurate with cognitive ability. However, a pattern of expressive language disability was noted in the oldest group. (Author/JDD)

This study examined repair strategies used by boys with language impairments, in response to clarification requests following conversational breakdowns. Five subjects, aged four-five, were compared with five age-matched controls and five controls matched for verbal competence. Results showed that all three groups overwhelmingly used revisions to…

Analysis of the discourse of eight- and nine-year-old children with emotional disturbances as compared with that of non-emotionally disturbed peers found significant differences between the groups. The analysis focused on mean length of utterances and discourse error patterns. (MSE)