Acquisition of passive and active vocabulary in sign and oral language was analyzed in 2 children congenitally deaf, through age 54 months. Acquisition of sign occurred more quickly than oral language. Production of active nouns, function words, and "wh" question words in sign was equivalent to that of hearing peers, and was later transferred to…

Examination of the school records of 41 children (ages 3 to 18) identified as having higher functioning autistic disorder (H-F AD) indicated that subjects' characteristics (including cognitive, language, social, developmental, and medical) were as similar to those of children with learning disabilities as they were to other children diagnosed as…

Reviews five books: (1) "Language Acquisition: A Linguistic Introduction" (Helen Goodluck); (2) "Pathways to Number: Children's Developing Numerical Abilities" (Jacqueline Bideaud and others); (3) "The Collaborative Construction of Pretend" (Carolee Howes); (4) "The Role of Parents in the Development of Child's Peer Acceptance" (Maja Dekovic); and…

Discusses a new language curriculum model called the "merry-go-round model," which involves the use of levels rather than courses. By emphasizing skill acquisition rather than course completion, this system allows individual progression and groups students according to their level of skill development. Assessment in this program is…

Three children were observed interacting with their mothers before the onset of single words, when vocabulary consisted of 10 words, and when it consisted of 50 words. Relations between communicative functions and acoustic analysis of prosodic variables were studied. Considerable variability was found in the number of rises produced overall and…

Describes an ESL department's whole language approach to writing and reading, replacing its traditional grammar-based ESL instructional sequence. Reports the positive quantitative and qualitative results of the first three years of using the new approach. (KEH)

This study assessed children's visual recognition memory at seven months; their language development up to four years; and their intelligence up to five years. A greater preference for novelty in infancy was associated with later comprehension and expressive language and higher IQ scores. The relationship between novelty preference and IQ was…

Working class and upper-middle class mothers were videotaped interacting with their toddlers in four settings. Samples of the mothers' adult-directed speech were also collected. Observed were social class differences in the mothers' child-directed speech and some parallel differences in the mothers' adult-directed speech. This may reflect more…

In one experiment, children learned more about consonant blends at the onset than at the end of words. In a second experiment, children learned more about rhyming vowel-consonant blend sequences at the end of words than those at the beginning of words, where the vowel extended the onset. (BC)

A study of children's acquisition of synonymy as a sense-property during the second childhood period (as defined by Piaget) suggests that, contrary to psychologists' claims, nominal realism is a linguistic phenomenon that should be studied as such. (75 references) (Author/CB)

This study of teaching methods in language interventions with three preschool children with autism found greater improvements in responding and considerably less disruptive behavior during the natural language (using functional stimuli and natural reinforcers) teaching condition compared to the traditional language condition. (Author/DB)

This article reports a study of the communication development (especially concerning effect of context on content and mean length of utterance) within a family consisting of hearing parents, two hearing daughters, and a newly adopted deaf daughter (aged 2:8-3:0). Findings suggested that play contexts were more conducive to language acquisition…

This study found that interactions between mothers and deaf infants (n=20) were positively influenced by social support provided to mothers in the infants' early months, mothers' visual and tactile responsiveness, and infants' ability to cope with interactive stress. The relationship between early experience and later language development was not…

This study of comprehension of metaphors found that 11 adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI) exhibited little difference in comprehension compared to that of 18 normal adolescents. Ten adolescents with language learning disability, in contrast, demonstrated significantly poorer comprehension of metaphors than did both the normal subjects…

Reviews three books: (1) "Contemporary Issues in the Early Years: Working Collaboratively for Children" (Gillian Pugh, editor); (2) "Social Interaction and the Development of Language and Cognition," (Alison F. Garton); and (3) "Child and Nature," (World Organization for Early Childhood Education). (AC)