Language contact in the speech of children acquiring two languages simultaneously has been claimed to be qualitatively different from that of older or more mature bilingual speakers. This article argues for the position that these patterns of language contact are encounters of the same kind. (Author/VWL)

Explores some typical early-childhood behaviors, such as tantrums, hitting, and sharing, and how they can be dealt with effectively. (HTH)

Early vocal development, consonant production, and spoken vocabulary were examined in a deaf toddler whose multichannel cochlear implant was activated at 20 months. The child understood almost 240 words and spoke approximately 90 words after one year of implant experience. The combination of early cochlear implantation, family support, and regular…

Analyzed 1.5- and 2.5-year-olds' problem solving and learning. Found that changes in toddlers' strategies could be assessed reliably on a trial-by-trial basis, that changes followed the basic form predicted by the overlapping waves model, and that analyses could reveal information about the qualitative and quantitative aspects of their learning.…

Describes the growth of Early Head Start (EHS) programs, focusing on one EHS partnership with child care providers in Delaware to serve infants, toddlers, and their families. Includes discussion of partnership strategies that promote quality programming, ways the early care and education coordinator supports child development, strategies for…

Offers suggestions for using talk time with toddlers in an early care setting to promote communicative interaction. Discusses how talk time was introduced and its usefulness in promoting language development, and identifying and helping delayed talkers. Describes talk time themes and strategies, including a caution not to use the time to correct…

A rationale for and components of a development systems model are presented to guide early intervention programs. Core principles emphasizing a developmental framework, integration, and inclusion are expressed in the context of a multicomponent interactive system. The model's focus on maximizing family patterns of interaction by addressing…

Continuous quality improvement efforts are vital to high-quality early intervention services. This article describes an ongoing quality improvement project within an infant mental health-based Early Head Start program. Both strategies and challenges in implementing issues and lessons learned in the initial 2-year phase of the quality improvement…

Family-centered philosophy and practice has been a central component of early intervention for infants and toddlers that is related to natural environment service provision. Family-centered practices have been widely accepted in the provision of early intervention services since the 1960s. Research indicates that families are essential to the…

According to this author, when parents provide competent daily care, they are teaching infants what love and trust are. All the daily routines parents perform, including feeding, cleaning up, diapering, undressing, dressing and settling into sleep, help provide infants with emotional comfort as well as the courage to learn. This article also…

Identification of children with developmental disabilities is the first critical step in providing early intervention services. Currently, only 20% of Taiwanese children who could potentially benefit from early intervention have been identified. One possible reason for this low identification rate is the lack of a culturally appropriate,…

Babies are active participants in their learning and need to explore a variety of objects. Nurturing relationships support these explorations. Objects are more clearly remembered and understood. Thus, one activity this article suggests doing with a 12-month-old to encourage abstract thinking, is talking about how squeezing the bottle of ketchup…

In this article, the authors discuss how children develop their motor skills at different age levels. Newborn's movements are jerky and uncoordinated. Spending lots of floor time with a baby lying on her back or stomach helps her develop coordination, balance, and muscle strength during her earliest months. As locomotion enters a baby's life, she…

This article discusses how to transition young children from home to school. The author states that while it's not easy for working parents to place their infant or toddler in childcare, it is a healthy experience for children and their parents. Hopefully, as a parent brings the baby for a little longer stay each day, feelings of mutual trust and…

This article reports on a series of 5 analyses of spontaneous production of verbal inflection (tense and person-number agreement) by 2-year-olds acquiring French as a native language. A formal analysis of the qualitative and quantitative results is developed using the unique resources of Optimality Theory (OT; Prince & Smolensky, 2004). It is…