A 1-year followup of 10 children with delayed onset of early speech skills found that all 4 children who were still delayed had been delayed in language comprehension and gesture tasks the previous year whereas the 6 children who had "caught up" had demonstrated age-appropriate language comprehension and gesture usage earlier. (Author/DB)

Two experiments examined preschoolers' ability to apply multiple labels to representational objects and to people. Found that preschoolers reliably produced or accepted several words per entity and accepted a high percentage of class-inclusive and overlapping word pairs. The mean number of words produced in labeling task was related to receptive…

A study examined the processing of low-phonetic-substance inflections versus a higher-phonetic-substance inflection by 21 children (age 8) with specific language impairments (SLI), 21 chronological age matched, and 21 receptive syntax matched children in a word-recognition reaction time (RT) task and an off-line task requiring judgments about…

A study examined the relation between communication development and aberrant behavior in 13 preschool children with developmental disabilities. There was a strong inverse relation between communication ability and severity of aberrant behavior. Deficits in receptive language were more strongly associated with severe aberrant behavior, particularly…

This study examined the association of chronological age (CA) with syntax and vocabulary comprehension in 102 children and adolescents with mental retardation. Results indicated that intelligence scores accounted for 55% and 29% of the variability of syntax and vocabulary scores, respectively. Introduction of CA into the regression equation…

Investigates the differential effects of three conditions--nonegotiated, premodified input, negotiation without "pushed output, and negotiation plus pushed output--on second language (L2) learners vocabulary comprehension and acquisition (receptive and productive). Findings of the study provide empirical evidence for the important role of…

A study examined perceptual-weighting strategies and performance-audibility functions of 11 children with moderate hearing impairments (HI), 11 age-matched peers, 11 adults with moderate HI, and 11 typical adults. Results showed both hearing sensitivity and age effects. Listeners with HI required lower levels of audibility to achieve similar…

A study involving 36 children and 10 adults investigated development of auditory frequency and temporal resolution using simultaneous and backward masking of a tone. On the measure of frequency resolution, 6- year-olds performed as well as adults. However, for the backward masking task, 6-year-olds had higher threshold than adults. (Contains…

This article reviews literature relating to the role of severe congenital speech impairment on phonological processing before reporting on a study of five adults with severe congenital speech impairments and their responses on tasks involving reading, receptive vocabulary, lexical decision making, and phoneme identification. Difficulties with…

The relation between theory of mind and affective perspective taking was examined in a study with 42 three- to five-year-olds. Children completed tasks measuring affective perspective taking, theory of mind, and receptive language abilities. Significant positive correlations existed between overall affective perspective taking and theory of mind…

This study examined the receptive language skills of young children (4-6 years old) with specific language impairment (SLI). Specifically, the authors looked at their ability to fast-map semantic features of objects and actions and compared it to the performance of age-matched peers with normally developing language (NL). Children completed a…

One of the ways to improve the reliability in perceptual voice quality rating is to provide listeners with external anchors. A paired comparison matching paradigm using synthesized Cantonese voice stimuli that covered a range of rough and breathy qualities were used to investigate the rating reliability. Twenty-five speech pathology students rated…

Characterizing early communicative development in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is valuable for understanding profiles of ability in this population. The current investigation was modeled on Charman, Drew, Baird & Baird (2003b). Analyses explored parent report of early vocabulary, non-verbal communication, functional object use and…

Successful community-university partnerships are usually attributed, at least in part, to clear communication processes. This chapter reflects on language and context as elements in developing a strong partnership process.

The comparison of cognitive and linguistic skills in individuals with developmental disorders is fraught with methodological and psychometric difficulties. In this paper, we illustrate some of these issues by comparing the receptive vocabulary knowledge and non-verbal reasoning abilities of 41 children with Williams syndrome, a genetic disorder in…