This study tested the theory that future poor comprehenders would show modest but pervasive deficits in both language comprehension and production during early childhood as compared with future poor decoders and typical readers. Using an existing database (NICHD ECCRN), fifth-grade students were identified as having poor comprehension skills…

This study examined the contribution of cognitive function, severity of autism, and adaptive functioning to the variability in language and communication skills in 129 preschool children (aged 24-63 months) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Participants were selected from a representative research cohort of 208 preschool children on the basis…

Purpose: We sought to identify factors predictive of or associated with receipt of speech/language services during early childhood. We did so by analyzing data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B; Andreassen & Fletcher, 2005), a nationally representative dataset maintained by the U.S. Department of Education. We…

This study examined the impact of training mothers to talk elaboratively about the past on children's understanding of mind. The researchers randomly assigned 102 mothers of 19-month-old children to a training or no-training group. Mothers in the experimental group received training in an elaborative style of talking about the past when children…

Targeted to children as young as 3 months old, there is a growing number of baby media products that claim to teach babies to read. This randomized controlled trial was designed to examine this claim by investigating the effects of a best-selling baby media product on reading development. One hundred and seventeen infants, ages 9 to 18 months,…

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the language status of 120 young, Latino dual language learners living in poverty in the United States. Maternal language input and home language and literacy environments were examined with regard to language development at 24 and 36 months. Results suggested that even when combining English and Spanish…

Prospective questionnaire data from a longitudinal population sample on children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), developmental delay, specific language impairment, or typical development (TD), were collected at ages eight, 12 and 24 months, via the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scale Developmental Profile (CSBS)--Infant Toddler…

Purpose: This study's objectives were to describe expressive vocabulary acquisition in children with intellectual disabilities (ID) and to examine specific pre- and early linguistic behaviors used to request and comment, chronological age, cognitive skills, and vocabulary comprehension as predictors of expressive vocabulary. Method: This study…

The development of imitation during the second year of life plays an important role in domains of sociocognitive development such as language and social learning. Deficits in imitation ability in persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from toddlerhood into adulthood have also been repeatedly documented, raising the possibility that early…

The aim of this longitudinal study was to obtain information on the early lexical development and its predictive value to language skills in very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children. The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory was used to collect data of the early receptive and expressive lexicon of the 32 VLBW children. This information was…

This longitudinal assessment concentrated on the relation between the home literacy environment (HLE) and early language acquisition during infancy and toddlerhood. In study 1, after controlling for socio-economic status, a broadly defined HLE predicted language comprehension in 50 infants. In study 2, 27 children returned for further analyses.…

This study compared language skills in a group of very low-income toddlers with those of a middle-income sample matched on age and sex. The assessment instrument used was the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory for toddlers, a parent report form. Scores for low-income group were strikingly lower on three key indices evaluated: size of…

Purpose: Language and speech are difficult to assess in newly arrived internationally adopted children. The purpose of this study was to determine if assessments completed when toddlers were first adopted could predict language outcomes at age 2. Local norms were used to develop early intervention guidelines that were evaluated against age 2…