Examines, through a longitudinal study, the temporal correspondences of 4 Japanese children, aged 7 to 11, in the attainment of specific milestones in play and language. All children proceeded through the same sequence of stages, but the rate of development was different depending on their environment. (34 references) (GLR)

Children between the ages of seven and nine years were given metalinguistic tasks and measures of field dependence-independence (FDI). Results showed a common basis for FDI and metalinguistic problems requiring high levels of control of linguistic processing but not for FDI and problems requiring high levels of analysis of linguistic knowledge.…

This study found that the speech of mothers (n=28) of toddlers slow to acquire expressive language tended to differ only in the frequency of use of lexical contingency devices (specifically expansion and extension of child speech), when compared to mothers of normally speaking toddlers. (Author/DB)

Twenty-eight toddlers with slow expressive language development were compared to normally speaking age-mates and found to show delayed rather than deviant development in the average level of complexity of their syllable structures, the number of different consonant phonemes produced, and the percentage of consonants correctly produced in…

Examination of 23 4-year-old children classified otitis media negative or positive during their first year of life indicated that otitis positive children required a more advantageous signal-to-competition ratio for sentence intelligibility, compared to otitis-negative peers. No intergroup differences were found in receptive or expressive language…

Based on the results of native and foreign language assessments of high school learners, it is inferred that students with foreign language learning difficulties have subtle but underlying native language learning difficulties, especially in the phonological and syntactic codes of language. Implications for diagnosis and teaching are discussed.…

Disfluencies in the verbal and signed language of a 10-year-old moderately mentally retarded boy were analyzed. Discussion addresses implications for the accurate characterization of stuttering in manual communication and appropriate approaches to management in such cases. (DB)

Reviews studies on cross-orthographic Stroop interference tests. Critiques one of the first cross-orthographic Stroop studies to describe how such studies have been used to explore cognitive mechanisms involved in reading. Reviews conceptual and methodological flaws in the research. (PRA)

This article introduces this special issue on natural processes involved in spontaneous interactions between children with language disorders and their caretakers. It describes the use of the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) to study developmental language disabilities by analyzing phonological, morphosyntactic, lexical,…

This study evaluated the effects of a home-based parent training program on the language development of young children of 28 mothers with mental retardation. Interaction training consisted of verbal instruction, modeling, feedback, and tangible reinforcement. After training, parent/child interaction scores were no longer lower than those of a…

Nine children participated in one of three groups: children diagnosed as both sensory and language impaired, children diagnosed as language impaired, and normally developing children matched for language level. Sensory integration activities prior to language intervention resulted in significant changes on the Battelle Developmental Inventory for…

This study, involving 40 preschool children with normal cognitive abilities, determined the effects of initial teaching of semantic elements on compound Blissymbol acquisition, retention, and generalization in a story-telling context. Results indicated that the initial teaching of elements did not contribute to compound acquisition and retention…

The frequency and types of questions that 4 hearing mothers used with their deaf daughters (ages 3-4) were examined. Results indicated that these mothers used fewer questions than hearing mothers of hearing children, but the types of questions were similar. Child's mean length of utterance influenced the amount and types of questions mothers used.…

The Phonetic Level Evaluation was administered to 30 preschoolers with normal hearing. Results indicated that approximately the same error rate was observed for vowel productions as for simple consonants and that scores for all children were considerably poorer for initial consonant blends than for final consonant blends. These findings run…

This paper investigates the development of interactive communication skills in 170 children aged 7 to 13. Results indicate that the development of interactive communication skills is rather different from the process of language acquisition both in the extended timescale involved and in the considerable variability exhibited by speakers of…