Despite the seemingly simple mapping between adjectives and perceptual properties (e.g., color, texture), preschool children have difficulty establishing the appropriate extension of novel adjectives. When children hear a novel adjective applied to an individual object, they successfully extend the adjective to other members of the same object…

The 'multilingual turn' has opened up a variety of creative, participatory methods for researchers and educators to explore language learners' linguistic repertoires, language practices and resources, and linguistic experiences. In this article, we draw on data from the English as an additional language (EAL) secondary school classroom context…

Experimental studies show that children have greater difficulty with "wh"-extraction from object position than subject position, arguably an intervention effect (e.g., Relativized Minimality). In this study we provide additional evidence of a S/O asymmetry in A'-dependencies from a novel source--sluicing. The results of our first…

Although the literature reveals that university leadership has been growing more diverse, with younger leaders the most diverse group in terms of ethnicity, race, and linguistic diversity, the literature on English language learners in higher education leadership roles remains scarce. In fact, very few studies have specifically explored the…

This dissertation examines the experiences of Latino/a/x parents in early childhood special education and the ways that special education teachers shape those experiences. While Latinx children continue to be a large population in special education, the majority of special education advocacy and evidence-based practice is led by and tested with…

Early intervention is not officially implemented in Thailand. The shortage of practitioners, the inaccessibility of early intervention services, and the lack of parental involvement extremely deprive opportunities for children who are deaf and hard of hearing to develop language and communication within the critical period. This dissertation aimed…

A good deal of research purports that bilingualism has a positive effect on some aspects of cognitive functioning. However, this effect is not consistent, and little research examines trajectories of cognitive skill development in bilingual children. Moreover, it remains unclear whether different types of bilingualism impact how cognitive…

Research Findings: This study aims to extend our knowledge regarding contributions of educator--child interactions to child language outcomes by examining the extent to which specific dimensions of the CLASS observational tool of educator-child interactions are associated with child language abilities, utilizing data from an Australian…

Purpose: Both fictional oral narrative and expository oral discourse skills are critical language competencies that support children's academic success. Few studies, however, have examined African American children's microstructure performance across these genres. To address this gap in the literature, the study compared African American…

Reterritorialization is an imperial process that creates settler colonial nations, like Canada, and funds intergenerational settler policies to assert intergenerational control over unceded territory, like English-only and French-only teacher education programs. This results in pedagogies designed to discourage learners from exploring other…

Reading comprehension is a fundamental and indispensable skill for academic achievement and daily functioning. Sadly, a significant number of children and youth, particularly those diagnosed with learning disabilities (LD), encounter difficulties in acquiring this vital capability. Thankfully, several well-established approaches exist to offer…

The rapid growth of digital devices in recent years has caused significant effects on children's screen time. Advancements in technology usage have a particularly strong impact on children in an era dominated by digital advancements, influencing their education, entertainment, communication, and socialisation, raising concerns about the…

Purpose: This study tested an assumption of the Natural Referent Vowel (Polka & Bohn, 2011) framework, namely, that directional asymmetries in adult vowel perception can be influenced by language experience. Method: Data from participants reported in Escudero and Williams (2014) were analyzed. Spanish participants categorized the Dutch vowels…

Can preschoolers make pragmatic inferences based on the intonation of an utterance? Previous work has found that young children appear to ignore intonational meanings and come to understand contrastive intonation contours only after age six. We show that four-year-olds succeed in interpreting an English utterance, such as "It LOOKS like a…

This commentary highlights major validation challenges raised, explicitly or implicitly, from the four articles in the special issue on "Validity Considerations for Assessing Language Proficiency in Young Language Minority Students." They are concerned with: (1) the construct definition in consideration of young language-minority (LM)…