Introduction: The study reported in this article tracked the learning rate of 43 children with multiple disabilities and visual impairments who had limited to no verbal language across seven months of classroom-based intervention using a standardized set of tangible symbols. Methods: The participants were introduced to tangible symbols on a daily…

The interaction approach to second language acquisition (SLA) suggests that changes that occur during conversation facilitate second language development by providing learners with opportunities to receive modified comprehensible input and interactional feedback, to produce output, and to notice gaps between their interlanguage and the target…

This longitudinal study examined developmental links between closeness in teacher-child relationships and children's receptive language ability from the end of the preschool years into the early elementary years, while controlling for changes in peer interaction quality and child behavioral functioning. The sample included children and their…

Since the seminal work of Broca in 1861, it is well established that language is essentially processed in the left hemisphere. However, the origin of hemispheric specialization remains controversial. Some authors posit that language lateralization is genetically determined, while others have suggested that hemispheric specialization develops with…

The English Language Institute (now the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies) at Victoria University of Wellington has a long history of corpus-based vocabulary research, especially after the arrival of the second director of the institute, H. V. George, and the appointment of Helen Barnard, whom George knew in India. George's…

Relations between bilingual children's patterns of conversational code-switching (responding to one language with another), the balance of their dual language input, and their expressive and receptive proficiency in two languages were examined in 115 2½-year-old simultaneous Spanish-English bilinguals in the U.S. Children were more likely to…

In the present study, we examined the relation of knowledge of semantic radicals to students' language proficiency and word reading for adult Chinese-as-a-foreign language students. Ninety-seven college students rated their proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing in Chinese, and were administered measures of receptive and…

This study utilized a novel task design in an effort to identify the source of the second language processing advantage commonly reported in mixed language conditions, investigate switch cost asymmetry in non-balanced bilinguals, and identify task-related variables that potentially contribute to inconsistent results across studies with similar…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the comprehension of questions beginning with different wh- question words presented in two referential conditions to individuals with intellectual disability (ID). Thirty-nine school-age participants completed a battery of who, what, where, when, why, and how questions with and without a picture…

This study aimed to discover whether general receptive vocabulary is qualitatively phenotypical in Down syndrome. Sixty-two participants with Down syndrome (M age = 16.74 years, SD = 3.28) were individually matched on general vocabulary raw total score with 62 participants with intellectual disability of undifferentiated etiology (M age = 16.20…

This study examined whether language skills and nonverbal cognitive skills were associated with clinician-observed restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) in a sample of 115 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) at ages 2 and 3. By age 3, RRBs were significantly negatively correlated with receptive and expressive language, as well as…

Using the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, language comprehension and production were compared in a sample of 101,250 children aged 2 ; 00 to 9 ; 11 and a focus subsample of 38,845 children aged 2 ; 00 to 4 ; 11 from sixteen under-researched developing nations. In the whole sample, comprehension slightly exceeded production; correlations between…

This study assessed emotional and speech-language contributions to childhood stuttering. A dual diathesis-stressor framework guided this study, in which both linguistic requirements and skills, and emotion and its regulation, are hypothesized to contribute to stuttering. The language diathesis consists of expressive and receptive language skills.…

Routine formulae are highly frequent, situationally bound chunks that are beneficial to L2 learners' pragmatic performance. These formulae are usually more easily acquired in the target language setting but they are to some extent also learnable in foreign language classrooms. This study investigates the effect of different lengths of residence…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which a parent-implemented language intervention improves language skills in toddlers at risk for persistent language impairment (LI) as compared with a group of typically developing toddlers. Method: Thirty-four children with LI between 24 and 42 months of age were randomly…