This study examined the effectiveness of a training program designed to help disadvantaged teenage mothers promote their infants' early cognitive development. Subjects were 127 mothers whose babies were less than 6 months old at the start of the program; most were white women near the poverty level, and many were unmarried. The control group…

This paper discusses the results of a study comparing the language of preschool children from low-income homes to that of their parents as affected by the adult participation in training sessions planned to encourage language development. The study was conducted in three preschools in the Detroit metropolitan area. A total of 96 children from ages…

This Project L.E.A.F. guide to ecology and language development activities for the primary grades consists of separate sections for kindergarten and grade 1 and a combined section for grades 2 and 3. Project L.E.A.F.--Language, Environment (Ecology) and Families--involved 270 Wisconsin primary school students in a model program with three main…

This document reviews the major trends of thought concerning first and second language acquisition, in an attempt to trace a sequential history to second language teaching methodology today. The contributions of the behaviorist and nativist schools of thought are examined in particular, and two major issues are focused upon: (1) the origins of…

The paper provides a brief discussion of research conducted in child language acquisition at the University of California at Davis in the winter and spring of 1977. The research was directed at children's comprehension of WHY questions. It was an attempt to define when and how children come to understand abstract concepts, such as WHY questions.…

The active/passive system of English grew out of a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) system where the fundamental distinction was between active and middle voices. The middle voice included within its functions the relationship that now would be known as passive. The PIE voice system is preserved in ancient Greek and Sanskrit, and in the former, the…

This curriculum program was developed to serve as a guide or reference for those professionals wishing to implement or improve upon a current participation program for parents of 6- to 12-month-old infants. The curriculum program covers such topics as the importance of early stimulation, infants' gross and fine motor development, social/emotional…

Based on a five month participant-observation study of two schools, this paper describes the organization and curriculum of English primary schools, with an emphasis upon strategies and materials used in developing linguistic competence in school children. The report describes the organization, curriculum, and development of communication…

An overview of issues in bilingual vocational education and language assessment is related in this paper to the Limited English Speaking (LES) Program at Mesa Community College (MCC). First, problems with traditional approaches to LES students are cited. Then, the goals of Vocational English as a Second Language (VESL) are discussed and necessary…

When working with limited English proficient (LEP) children who have been mainstreamed into regular elementary school classrooms, teachers must keep in mind that the first order of business is to help the students build a store of knowledge about English--how it sounds, what it looks like in print, and what it means. Teachers will discover that it…

A common assumption underlying cross-linquistic studies in child language is that the comparison of any feature in unrelated languages may simplify semantic-grammatical complexities in a way that studies on a single language cannot. This paper begins by discussing the order of acquisition of grammatical morphemes in Spanish by four…

This study sought to determine the mean differences in readiness test scores of three groups of children: (1) children whose parents volunteered to particpate in a training program and received the training before their children were tested (Experimental Group); (2) children whose parents volunteered to participate in the training program and…

Most second language acquisition research has been concerned with grammar or phonology and has failed to discuss lexical acquisition. The main reason for this neglect has been the lack of vocabulary study by linguists. However, recent concern with semantic theory has brought new impetus to work on lexical acquisition. Useful research on lexical…

Language skill attrition refers to the loss of any language or portion of a language whether it be the declining use of mother tongue skills, the replacement of one language by another in language contact situations, the deterioration of language in the neurologically impaired or elderly, or the death of whole languages. In this paper, language…

A study was conducted to determine whether and how children with diverse cultural backgrounds, including the cultural mainstream in North America, might differentially identify and acquire rules of discourse appropriate to becoming literate. This study examined the natural language used by teacher and students recorded within selected periods of…