Animals have long been used as comparative models for adult human speech perception. However, few animal models have been used to explore developmental speech perception questions. This dissertation encourages the use of domestic dogs as a behavioral model for speech perception processes. Specifically, dog models are suggested for questions about…

Young children engage in essentialist reasoning about natural kinds, believing that many traits are innately determined. This study investigated whether personal experience with second language acquisition could alter children's essentialist biases. In a switched-at-birth paradigm, 5- and 6-year-old monolingual and simultaneous bilingual…

This brief statement supports more research on the linguistic and cognitive abilities of animals, particularly primates, and sees direct applicability of such research to language learning by humans with mental retardation who have not learned to speak. (DB)

In earlier work we have shown that adults, infants, and cotton-top tamarin monkeys are capable of computing the probability with which syllables occur in particular orders in rapidly presented streams of human speech, and of using these probabilities to group adjacent syllables into word-like units. We have also investigated adults' learning of…

The present study investigated the effects of positive and negative GABA[subscript A] modulators under three different baselines of repeated acquisition in squirrel monkeys in which the monkeys acquired a three-response sequence on three keys under a second-order fixed-ratio (FR) schedule of food reinforcement. In two of these baselines, the…

An interview with Duane Rumbaugh and Mary Ann Romski, researchers on the use of alternative communication systems for severely and profoundly retarded persons, focuses on applications from their primate research and the use of a computerized keyboard system to investigate language acquisition in severely retarded persons. (CL)

Examines one component of an African Grey parrot's monologue behavior, private speech, while he was being taught new vocalizations. The data are discussed in terms of the possible functions of monologues during the parrot's acquisition of novel vocalizations. (85 references) (GLR)

Describes procedures used to study abilities of chimpanzees to be taught written language. Words, sentences, questions, metalinguistics, class concepts, the copula, some quantifiers and if-then logical connections are investigated. Success seems attributable largely to non-linguistic cues. (JM)

The mother of a deaf preschool girl recounts how a pet kitten found by her daughter has provided the occasion and motivation for much language practice. (GW)

Reviews theories of language origin with particular reference to Morris Swadesh's The Origin and Diversification of Language'', Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1971. (RS)

This article reviews the possibilities that a comparative, functionally oriented view of communication evolution offers to a linguist interested in the evolution of human languages and suggests a wide variety of areas which might be further investigated with profit. (CFM)

Discusses the ecological and comparative-intelligence approach to human language. (DD)

This case study examined the development of language skills in a bonobo and a chimpanzee raised by human caregivers since infancy, focusing on the primates' ability to comprehend simple speech, understand referential symbol use, and engage in intentionally communicative routines. It is argued that comparative results from these primates can…

Systematic sampling was done of signing between five home-reared chimpanzees who had had 4-7 years of complete immersion in integrating their signing interaction into their nonverbal communication. Eight-eight percent of all signs reported fell into the social categories of reassurance, social interaction, and play. (SL)

Compared comprehension of novel communicative signs to assist 2.5- and 3-year-old humans, chimpanzees, and orangutans find hidden objects during a hiding-finding game. Found that children at both ages performed above chance with all signs. No ape performed above chance for any signs not known before the experiment despite three times as many…