This study is about the role of elicited verbal imitation in toddler word learning. Forty-eight toddlers were taught eight nonwords linked to referents. During training, they were asked to imitate the nonwords. Naming of the referents was tested at three intervals (one minute later [uncued], five minutes, and 1-7 days later [cued]) and recognition…

Nineteen shy, twenty-three middle and twenty-five non-shy junior kindergarten children were assessed at school by an unfamiliar examiner, and at home where their parents administered a parallel form of the expressive and receptive vocabulary tests given at school. A speech sample between the child and parent was also collected at home. Shy…

Relative importance of appearance and potential function in children's object naming was examined. First, 16 children, taught novel names for unfamiliar objects, had to decide whether these applied to items that resembled the training objects in appearance or potential function. Then the name training procedure was revised so that equal emphasis…

Assessed long-term predictive validity of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories: Words and Sentences (CDI:WS) for children's expressive and receptive vocabulary development. Sixty-one New Zealand children were assessed with a New Zealand version of the CDI, and with the Expressive Vocabulary Test and Peabody Picture Vocabulary…

Examined the use of the mutual exclusivity constraint in naming objects among young children monolingual in English or bilingual in English/Urdu or in English/Greek. The study used three tests of the constraint: disambiguation, rejection and restriction. Findings revealed that bilingual children used the constraint to a lesser extent than…

Some 76 hearing children in prekindergarten classes, half receiving sign instruction and half not, were tested on English vocabulary acquisition. Children who received the sign instruction scored significantly higher on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test than children receiving sign instruction. (Contains 15 references.) (Author/LB)

Investigates whether children ages 1;6 just beginning to learn words can learn new words in a variety of nonostensive contexts. The results of two studies involving adults interacting with children in games of searching for objects suggest that from very early in language acquisition, children learn words through active attempts to understand…

Research was conducted to study systematically the comprehension and production of the pronouns "he, she, him, her" in the language of normal and linguistically deviant children. The purposes of the study were to: observe the manner in which normal children comprehend and produce these four pronouns, in terms of both their use and their…

This evaluation report presents the details and results of an experimental, compensatory language program designed to improve the standard English language facility of young aboriginal children on the assumption that this would contribute to improvement in reading and other aspects of academic performance. The pilot program was administered during…