Describes a course for preservice English teachers on descriptive grammar. Discusses definitions and aims and what to do about traditional grammar; transformational-generative grammar; language acquisition; and applied grammar. Presents teaching strategies. (RS)

Two three-year olds, one verbal and one nonverbal, with moderate to severe developmental delays were taught target communication objectives using milieu language teaching. The children generalized their target objectives spontaneously and in probe situations that also required them to display listener preparatory behaviors. (Author/DB)

Examines infants' sensitivity to word units in fluent speech by inserting one-second pauses either at boundaries between successive words or between syllables within words. Results indicate that, by 11 months, infants are sensitive to word boundaries, and that this sensitivity depends on more than prosodic information or prior knowledge. (65…

Examined the relationship between early otitis media in children attending day care and children's subsequent behavior in the day care classroom when they were well. Found that day care children with chronic otitis media in the first three years of life play alone more often and have fewer verbal interactions with peers than nonchronic children.…

Reviews research that provides evidence that nonnative speakers of English in the United States use English a great deal and have acquired it very well. Misreporting of facts has suggested that immigrants are not acquiring English. English as a Second Language classes do facilitate the development of conversational language. (SLD)

This study explored the semantic content of spontaneous speech of 10 children (ages 4-5) during pretend play. More references to family were made during home play and to peers and self during preschool play. Use of daily routines and fantasy/cartoon characters as common play themes was analyzed. Discusses intervention programs for children with…

This study investigated the effectiveness of teacher-implemented naturalistic language intervention within play activities for four elementary students with moderate mental disabilities. While students showed significant increases in numbers of spontaneous language targets used during the intervention condition, they demonstrated minimal…

This article explores the theoretical and empirical support for the teaching of reading as a supportive language development program for young children with disabilities. Unidirectional and multidirectional theories are discussed. Some evidence was found for a formative influence of reading on language development. (Author/CR)

Forty-nine African American children (ages 3-5) enrolled in Head Start were assessed using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Their mean score was significantly lower than the mean for the normative sample. Few items were systematically missed; instead, performance seemed reflective of socioeconomic and/or ethnic patterns of vocabulary usage.…

A study investigated the first words produced by 17 bilingual children (ages 1-4) speaking English and Mandarin Chinese from environments where both languages were spoken. A greater number of nouns than verbs were produced as first words in both English and Mandarin Chinese. Verbs were produced only in Mandarin Chinese. (Contains references.)…

A study examined the relationship between phonemic awareness and reading ability in 29 elementary children enrolled in a residential school for students with deafness. Reading ability was significantly correlated to language ability, but not to phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness did not contribute to any variance in reading ability. (Contains…

Language development was studied in 310 pairs of 4-year-old twins. Rotated factor analyses indicated presence of a general language factor (L) and a general nonverbal factor (NV). Moderate genetic influence was found for L and NV abilities. Bivariate genetic analysis estimated a genetic correlation of .63 between L and NV abilities. Results…

Hearing stories read aloud enhances children's language skills, makes accessible texts that are beyond children's decoding skills or that use old-fashioned words, foreign names, expressions, dialects, or nonstandard grammatical constructions. This article provides models for the differentiated voices of characters, helps young listeners appreciate…

Recent research has established closer links between language, cognition, and social life than Piaget or Vygotsky imagined. Connections have been established between object permanence development and acquisition of disappearance words and the quantity and quality of child-adult joint attentional social interactions and children's early word…

A study tested models concerning syntactic categories in early multiword speech by investigating overlap in contexts in which children (n=11) used determiner types. Results indicate children have little knowledge of relationships between different determiner types, suggesting development of an adultlike syntactic determiner category may be…