Through two presented experiments, I investigated the relationship between the development of non-arbitrary relational control on (a) degree of incidental acquisition of both the listener and speaker components of naming (Inc-BiN), (b) arbitrary derived relations, and (c) joint attention for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).…

I selected 10 typically developing preschool students between the ages of 2 and 3 years from a preschool facility. I tested their listener and speaker responses to common stimuli to determine whether they demonstrated differences in their listener and speaker repertoires. I selected the 6 children with the largest discrepancy in their listener and…

The experimenter conducted three experiments to compare incidental language acquisition of familiar and non-familiar stimuli, and asses the effects of specific pairing experiences on the emergence of bidirectional naming (BiN) for familiar and non-familiar stimuli. In Experiment I the experimenter assessed the numbers of accurate untaught listener…

Vocabulary knowledge is central to the process of reading comprehension (Cromely & Azevedo, 2007; Stahl & Nagy, 2005; Stanovich, 1986). The majority of our vocabulary knowledge is postulated to come from the process of incidental vocabulary acquisition (IVA) while reading (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). Prior studies have estimated an average…

The present research focuses on the possible relation between observing responses and language acquisition. In the first of three experiments, preschool aged participants with and without disabilities were presented with the opportunity to observe multiple aspects of a stimulus. A Naming experience was created in which the stimulus was presented…

The proliferation of online simulation games across the globe in many different languages offers Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) researchers an opportunity to examine how language learning occurs in such virtual environments. While there has recently been an increase in the number of exploratory studies involving learning experiences of…