Describes how two teachers taught English Sign Language to 29 children (age 3) in a regular education preschool program which included 2 children with hearing impairments. When compared to 25 children who were not taught signing, the children who had been taught signing had significantly higher receptive vocabulary scores and were clearly superior…

Twenty-six children and adolescents who were unable to produce /r/ correctly listened to a tape of 200 words containing /r/ spoken, either correctly or incorrectly, by either the subjects themselves or another speaker. Subjects judged both the correctness of the /r/ and the speaker's identity. Results support a relationship between speech…

This study compared the language skills of low-birth-weight premature infants (N=11), higher birth-weight premature infants (N=14), and full-term infants (N=12) at 22 months corrected chronological age. Results suggest that low-birth-weight premature infants are at greater risk than higher birth-weight premature infants for speech and language…

Deaf children with signing parents, nonnative signing deaf children, children from a hearing impaired unit, oral deaf children, and hearing controls were tested on theory of Mind (ToM) tasks and a British sign language receptive language test. Language ability correlated positively and significantly with ToM ability. Age underpinned the…

A study compared 21 adolescent boys with Asperger syndrome and 21 controls and found significant differences between the two groups on measures evaluating social perception, social skills, number of close friends and frequency of contact, and social competence. There was also a significant difference on receptive language. (Contains references.)…

Discusses how to tackle the problem of determining a meaningful score for yes-no tests used to measure the size of receptive vocabulary. Signal Detection Theory is applied, and a new more accurate index is suggested. (Author/VWL)

Studies of American Sign language including functional magnetic resonance imaging of deaf signers confirms the importance of left hemisphere structures in signed language, but also the contributions of right hemisphere regions to sign language processing. A case study involving cortical stimulation mapping in a deaf signer provides evidence for…

This study examined possible relationships between young children's prelinguistic communication behaviors and subsequent (12 months later) expressive and receptive language outcomes. Results indicated that rate of intentional nonverbal communication initially was a predictor of spontaneous word productions later. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)

A meta-analysis was carried out of interventions for children with primary developmental speech and language delays/disorders. The data were categorized depending on the control group used in the study (no treatment, general stimulation, or routine speech and language therapy) and were considered in terms of the effects of intervention on…

Background: High levels of behaviour problems are found in children with language impairments, but less is known about the level and nature of language impairment in children with severe behavioural problems. In particular, previous data suggest that at primary age, receptive impairments are more closely related to behaviour problems, whereas…

This study evaluated a computerised program for training spelling in 8- to 13-year-olds with receptive language impairments. The training program involved children typing words corresponding to pictured items whose names were spoken. If the child made an error or requested help, the program gave phonological and orthographic cues to build up the…

An essential part of the human capacity for language is the ability to link conceptual or semantic representations with syntactic representations. On the basis of data from spontaneous production, Tomasello (2000) suggested that young children acquire such links on a verb-by-verb basis, with little in the way of a general understanding of…

The effects of adult questioning on children's novel word acquisition during storybook reading were investigated. Three-year-olds were assigned to one of three conditions: vocabulary eliciting questions, noneliciting questions, and no questions (control). General vocabulary comprehension and novel word knowledge were equivalent across the groups…

Seventy-seven children between the ages of 6 and 10 years, with severe mixed receptive-expressive specific language impairment (SLI), participated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Fast ForWord (FFW; Scientific Learning Corporation, 1997, 2001). FFW is a computer-based intervention for treating SLI using acoustically enhanced speech…

The educational ideology of Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP) in childhood education is influential, despite remarkably little empirical study. This article relates DAP to changes in achievement and receptive language among former Head Start children and classmates in Grades 1-3 (including between 1,564 and 4,764 children in 869 to 1,537…