A survey of parents of 54 school-age children with prelingual hearing loss being taught through the auditory-verbal approach revealed that 85% of children were estimated to read better than or as well as average normal hearing children. Of 37 children for whom standardized test scores were supplied, 30 scored at the 50th percentile or higher. (JDD)

A study assessed early literacy skills and expressive and receptive vocabulary skills in 39 Head Start children and correlated skills with measures of caregiver/child interactions observed in the home. Degree of caregiver involvement, rate of language interactions, and participation in early literacy activities were related to literacy and…

Highlights qualitative studies from two preschools that view the framework of literacy use as socially constructed and embedded in social and cultural perspectives and practices of communities. Suggests ways to strengthen early-childhood programs, including greater use of writing and drawing materials readily available, additional orientation to…

Twelve school-based speech-language practitioners enlisted the assistance of a university clinical phonologist to implement a research project investigating phonological acquisition. The speech samples of 520 children (ages 2-8) were transcribed. The 3-year-olds had acquired all major phoneme classes except liquids, /l/ was acquired between 4- 5,…

This study compared 20 young deaf children with either exceptionally good or exceptionally poor spoken language for their hearing loss, age, and intelligence. Factors associated with high performance included earlier use of binaural ear-level aids, better educated mothers, auditory/verbal or auditory/oral instruction, reliance on spoken language…

Analyzes data on the acquisition of German by Italian and Spanish speakers. Findings reveal that children learning a first language and adults learning a second language build up syntactic structure in much the same manner, and propose that the weak continuity approach of language acquisition accounts for all instances of syntactic acquisition.…

Explored the relation between types of peer behavior in young children to children's level of intention understanding. Found level of intention understanding predicted types of overtures made, types of objects offered, monitoring of partner responses, partner compliance, and types of speech acts addressed to partners. (Author/DLH)

A study examined the causal effects of distal and proximal risk factors for the use of gateway substances by 136 Mexican American adolescents (ages 11-15) identified with learning disabilities. Factors included peer delinquency, school satisfaction, self-esteem, language acculturation, socialization acculturation, self-reported delinquency,…

A case study is presented of the language and literacy development of a girl with deafness from preschool through sixth grade. Annual evaluation of language and literacy skills was used to select educational placements, instructional methods, strategies, and materials. Grade level progress and instruction is presented and discussed. (Contains…

This article compares different claims that have been made concerning acquisition by transitional rule-based derivation theories and by optimality theory. Case studies of children with phonological delays are examined. Error patterns are argued to be implicationally related and optimality theory is shown to offer a principled explanation.…

This paper investigates the perception of emotional force of swearwords and taboo words (S-T words) among 1039 multilinguals. It is based on data drawn from a large database collected through a web questionnaire on bilingualism and emotions. "t"-Tests revealed that the perceived emotional force of S-T words is highest in the L1 and gradually lower…

The PLS-4 (Preschool Language Scale, 4th edition) is a psychometrically sound instrument constructed to assess language skills in children from birth to 6 years 11 months. It is a useful diagnostic and research tool that can be used to identify current comprehension and expressive language skills and can measure changes in language skills over…

This article describes the ScienceStart! Curriculum, an early childhood curriculum that takes coherently organized science content as the hub of an integrated approach. ScienceStart! maps onto the typical preschool day and may be adapted for use in full-day or half-day preschool programs. It is designed to support the important developmental…

Infants under six months are able to discriminate native and non-native consonant contrasts equally well, but as they learn the phonological systems of their native language, this ability declines. Current explanations of this phenomenon agree that the decline in discrimination ability is linked to the formation of native-language phonemic…

We review the main findings of the Jyvaskyla of Dyslexia (JLD) which follows the development of children at familial risk for dyslexia (N = 107) and their controls (N = 93). We will illustrate the development of these two groups of children at ages from birth to school entry in the skill domains that have been connected to reading and reading…