Critiques an earlier article by M. Frauenglass and R. Diaz reporting their study on the interaction between private speech and cognition. Argues that their interpretation fails to regard how private speech is seen to regulate cognitive activity within Vygotskian psycholinguistic theory. (HOD)

When sound takes on meaning for the first time in the life of a child, a giant and prototypic step in the development of his symbolic capacities has taken place. This step is worthy of careful scientific scrutiny. This paper seeks first to describe the steps by which the author's child discovered the existence of meaning in sound, and second, to…

Three experiments with children between 5 and 7 years are described. It is shown that nominal predication of an unknown word by a superordinate term enables young children to make appropriate inferences concerning its attributes. The results are discussed in relation to semantic development and reasoning in the young child. (Author/RM)

Discusses the possibility of a neurolinguistic interconnection between the parieto-temporo-occipital junction, semantic aphasis, and cognitive and language development around age seven. (Author/HP)

Describes a study showing that mentally retarded children and mentally normal children do not differ fundamentally in cognitive development within the framework of a particular cognitive training. (Text is in French.) (AM)

The purpose of this paper is to familiarize readers with Vygotsky's theory on verbal regulation of thinking skills, to describe related research and applications of the theory, and to explore its relevance for researchers, parents, and educators. (MT)

To the question of whether Chomsky's hypothesized Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in young children is an adequate and feasible model of language acquisition, this paper answers that LAD should be reformulated so as to include semantics; that "informant presentation" rather than "text presentation" is responsible for language…

Children's understanding of the nature of polar terms and comparative terms between the polar opposites is discussed. (CHK)

Two transitional phases in the child's early language development are described; the first occurs between prelinguistic vocalization and one-word speech and the second between one-word and patterned speech. Cognitive, linguistic and affective inputs to the acquisition of reference and syntax are discussed in the light of the transitional…

Investigates the development of past tense expressions in the speech of children from 1.6 to 2.6. It is shown that this development depends crucially on the child's cognitive construction of the time dimension, as described by Piaget. (Author/RM)

This panel discussion seeks to determine the role of babbling and of nonlinguistic behavior in language acquisition. A central question is whether there is a continuity between babbling and speech. The paper presents the views that: the infant's ability to assimilate and adapt to his environment antedates the maturation of his visual and auditory…

Data on the development of fundamental frequency patterns and the emergence of semantic relations during the "one word period" in child language development are reported in this study. The research focuses on the changes that occur as children progress from producing single words to sequences of single words and finally to producing…

This paper examines children's early attempts at describing events absent in space and time, referred to as the "reportative function." The first part of the paper offers some explanations for the late emergence of the reportative function in young children's speech. Part two presents examples of children's attempts to report past events…

A study was conducted to determine whether the child expresses linguistic knowledge during the single-word period. The order of mention in 65 sets of successive single-word utterances from five children at Stage 1, two to four years old, were analyzed. To elicit speech, the children were shown line drawings representing such situations as animate…