In a recent article published in this journal, Moscati and Crain (M&C) showcase the explanatory power of a learnability constraint called the Semantic Subset Principle (SSP) (Crain et al. 1994). If correct, M&C's argument would represent a compelling demonstration of the operation of an innate, domain specific, learning principle. However,…

Using a sample of 1,117 families living in low-wealth rural areas, the current study focused on how home literacy practices for 3-year-old children were related to the children's language skills at ages 3 and 4. Three types of home literacy practices were explored: parent-to-child literacy practices, child literacy practices, and parent literacy…

Learning to walk allows infants to travel faster and farther and explore more of their environments. In turn, walking may have a cascading effect on infants' communication and subsequent responses from caregivers. We tested for an "inflection point"--a dramatic shift in the developmental progression--in infant communication and caregiver…

In the present study, a concurrent multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the efficacy of pivotal response treatment (PRT) on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of the question-asking initiations by four children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The researchers also examined whether the implementation…

This work presents an analysis of the intonation competence in a group of Italian children with cochlear implant (CI). Early cochlear implantation plays a crucial role in language development for children who were born deaf in that it favours the acquisition of complex aspects of language, such as the intonation structure. A story-generation task,…

Deixis -- a fundamental part of communication -- involves combinations of speech, gesture and eye-gaze, yet little is known about the temporal dynamics of this coordination. The authors analysed eye-gaze, pointing gestures and verbal productions in 514 deictic episodes during triadic, semi-naturalistic, book-reading sessions performed by Italian…

We collaborated with Early Head Start (EHS) coaches to qualitatively explore the feasibility delivering a professional development approach designed to enhance the quality of conversations in infant-toddler (I/T) classrooms and family child care homes. First, we reviewed empirical literature about oral language discourse skills in infants and…

The study examines phases in developing specification of grammatical marking of emergent clause-combining (CC) as indicative of children's growing ability to integrate two or more independent predications. To this end, both intra- and inter-clausal analyses were applied to all CC utterances produced by three Hebrew-acquiring children aged 2;0-3;0,…

Much research has focused on the expression of voluntary motion (Slobin, 2004; Talmy, 2000). The present study contributes to this body of research by comparing how children (three to ten years) and adults narrated short, animated cartoons in English and German (SATELLITE-FRAMED languages) vs. French (VERB-FRAMED). The cartoons showed agents…

The aim of this research was to examine parental practices aimed at supporting children's school readiness in social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and self-care domains. A case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. The study group of the research included 25 participants. The participants were…

Why are spatial metaphors, like the use of "high" to describe a musical pitch, so common? This study tested one hundred and fifty-four 3- to 5-year-old English-learning children on their ability to learn a novel adjective in the domain of space or pitch and to extend this adjective to the untrained dimension. Children were more…

Identification of language disorders in children younger than 3 years remains challenging despite agreement that early intervention improves outcomes. This study of twin language and gesture development substantiated the twinning effect, an unexplained lag in expressive and receptive language seen in twins, for a group of 88, 16- to 18-month-old…

Existing work on the acquisition of polarity-sensitive expressions (PSIs) suggests that children show an early sensitivity to the restricted distribution of negative polarity items (NPIs), but may be delayed in the acquisition of positive polarity items (PPIs). However, past studies primarily targeted PSIs that are highly frequent in children's…

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a quick shift to virtual speech-language services; however, only a small percentage of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) had previously engaged in telepractice. The purpose of this clinical tutorial is: (1) to describe how the Early Language and Literacy Acquisition in Children with Hearing Loss…

There is evidence showing that both maturational and environmental factors can impact on later language development. On the one hand, preterm birth has been found to increase the risk of deficits in the preschool and school years. Preterm children show poorer auditory discrimination, reading difficulties, poor vocabulary, less complex expressive…