This paper considers how fluent language users are rational in their language processing, their unconscious language representation systems optimally prepared for comprehension and production, how language learners are intuitive statisticians, and how acquisition can be understood as contingency learning. But there are important aspects of second…

A striking demonstration that sound-object correspondences are not completely arbitrary is that adults map nonsense words with rounded vowels (e.g. bouba) to rounded shapes and nonsense words with unrounded vowels (e.g. kiki) to angular shapes (Kohler, 1947; Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001). Here we tested the bouba/kiki phenomenon in 2.5-year-old…

Two studies examined whether 1-year olds' name learning during joint attention was guided by expectation that names will be in the form of spoken words. Results showed that 13-month olds, but not 20-month olds, learned a new sound/object correspondence, as evidenced by their choosing targets reliably in responses to hearing the word or sound on…

This study investigated a child's development of the concept that a word is a unit used to express meaning. Thirty children, selected at random from grades one through six, were chosen from a school where no exclusive method of teaching reading was used. Each child participated in two tasks. First, a list of nouns was presented in written form and…

The purpose of the study was (1) to examine the results from a two-association perceptual-motor task as to their implications for Luria's theory about the development of verbal control of non-verbal behavior; (2) to explore the effects of various learning experiences upon this development. The sample consisted of 20 randomly selected children in…

Endel Tulving's distinction between "episodic" and "semantic" memory defines age differences in word association norms more comprehensively than the usual syntactic classifications. As subjects mature the principal development is an episodic-semantic shift. Young children associate primarily with the stimulus' perceived…

Explains techniques used to help students comprehend concepts mentioned in their reading materials. (SW)

THE WORD ASSOCIATIONS OF URBAN SLUM CHILDREN, BOTH NEGRO AND WHITE, WERE STUDIED TO DETERMINE WHAT IMPACT EXTREME SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS DIFFERENCES HAVE ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT. THIS STUDY OF CHILDREN FROM THE LOWEST EXTREME OF THE SOCIOECONOMIC SCALE WAS MADE AS A FOLLOWUP TO AN EARLIER STUDY OF CHILDREN REPRESENTING VARIOUS CULTURAL AND…

The grapho-linguistic approach to teaching reading involves the labeling of self-initiated graphic images reinforced by the copying of the written labels, which helps the child to understand the transference of meaning from the object to its name to its written name. The best time to start labeling strategies is when the child draws recognizable…

Truscott and Sharwood Smith (henceforth T&SS) attempt to show how second language acquisition can occur without any learning. In their APT model, change depends only on the tuning of innate principles through the normal course of processing of L2. There are some features of their model that I find attractive. Specifically, their acceptance of the…

A study of the extent to which relationships exist between pupils' verbal associative learning ability and seven indices of pupil ability to verbalize utilized 32 third-grade and 34 fifth-grade pupils randomly selected from six Las Cruces schools. Raw data were collected from transcribed language samples, the Verbal Paired-Associate Test, the…

Present study attempted to alter the word association behavior of young children by the use of a training technique closely resembling controlled association. (Authors)

Differing amounts and ordering of pictorial content were compared to determine their effect on learning word-referent relations in a second language. Findings indicated there is an optimal level at which nonverbal context facilitates the process of inferring word meanings in a foreign language. (Author/DS)