It is well established that monolingual preschoolers' oral language development (vocabulary and oral comprehension) contributes to their later reading abilities; however, less is known about this relationship in bilingual populations where children are developing knowledge of two languages. It may be that children's abilities in one language do…

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…

The effectiveness of verbal, sign, and simultaneous systems for the acquisition of receptive language by an autistic boy was investigated. Results suggest nonsignificant differences among the three methods. (Author/SEW)

Results show that comprehension of word types (nouns, verbs, etc.) and linguistic structure can be orderly, producing a hierarchy of complexity similar to that found in normally hearing children. However, performance was about three years behind that of normally hearing peers. Journal availability: Elsevier North Holland, Inc., 52 Vanderbilt…

The receptive and expressive "wh" interrogative performance of 20 language-delayed children (4.3 to 6.4 years old) was compared to available normative data. These findings suggest that the delayed children develop the same order of acquisition and rules for questioning as normal children, but at a slower rate. (Author/SEW)

The communicative abilities of six sets of same-sex, preschool dizygotic twins were examined. In each dyad, one sibling had a strong history of recurrent otitis media (ROM) but the other twin did not. History of ROM was associated with lowered receptive vocabulary, with no consistent effects detected in expressive speech and language tasks.…

The study compared results of the Preschool Language Scale, administered to 214 rural and 214 suburban children in Nebraska. Both groups scored above age level, but a higher percentage of rural children failed a wide range of verbal ability and auditory comprehension items. The scale did not meet criteria for nonbiased, ecologically valid…

A study divided 40 children (age 7) into groups consisting of white normal language and language impaired and African American normal language and language impaired. African American English speakers with normal language scored significantly lower on the Test of Language Development-2P compared to white normal-language subjects, but did not differ…