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)

Administered the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory to 25 bilingual (English/Spanish) and 35 monolingual children who were furnishing data for longitudinal study. Assessment of the degree of overlap between bilingual children's lexical development in their two languages showed that they developed early vocabulary at the same rate as…

Ten preschool subjects exhibiting more disfluencies than 50 other subjects with language disorders were found to be older and score higher on vocabulary. Findings suggest some children with language disorders are at risk for fluency breakdown because of dysynchronies in development of lexical and syntactic aspects of language or as a result of…

Explains new research findings about how children learn letter-sound correspondences, relates the findings to whole-language reading instruction, and outlines a theory for how children acquire the letter-sound system without direct instruction in phonics. Describes recent findings on phonological processes involved in learning letter-sound…

This paper discusses the positive effects on young deaf children's and teachers' communicative attitudes of a functional approach to language intervention (developed in the Preschool Program for the Hearing Impaired at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) used in combination with the Oralingua preschool social studies…

The article offers suggestions for using word processing as an intervention tool with language handicapped students from elementary to college levels. Examples are offered to speech/language clinicians for using word processing in both clinical and administrative applications. Basic word processing is described in addition to graphics, synthesized…