Seventy-seven children between the ages of 6 and 10 years, with severe mixed receptive-expressive specific language impairment (SLI), participated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Fast ForWord (FFW; Scientific Learning Corporation, 1997, 2001). FFW is a computer-based intervention for treating SLI using acoustically enhanced speech…

The educational ideology of Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP) in childhood education is influential, despite remarkably little empirical study. This article relates DAP to changes in achievement and receptive language among former Head Start children and classmates in Grades 1-3 (including between 1,564 and 4,764 children in 869 to 1,537…

This study compared the abilities of children with specific language impairment (SLI; n=10) and typically developing (TD) children (n=13) to access and participate in an ongoing interaction between two unfamiliar peer partners. Results revealed that all children in the study accessed by either making an unprompted initiation toward their peers…

Four experiments investigated activation of semantic information in action preparation. Participants either prepared to grasp and use an object (e.g., to drink from a cup) or to lift a finger in association with the object's position following a go/no-go lexical-decision task. Word stimuli were consistent to the action goals of the object use…

Purpose: This study assessed the fast mapping performance of children with specific language impairment (SLI) across the preschool to kindergarten age span in relation to their phonological memory and vocabulary development. Method: Fifty-three children diagnosed with SLI and 53 children with normal language (NL) matched for age and gender (30…

This paper reports an assessment of the collocational competence of students of English Linguistics at the University of Granada. This was carried out to meet a two-fold purpose. On the one hand, we aimed to establish a solid corpus-driven approach based upon a systematic and reliable framework for the evaluation of collocational competence in…

Purpose: Language and speech are difficult to assess in newly arrived internationally adopted children. The purpose of this study was to determine if assessments completed when toddlers were first adopted could predict language outcomes at age 2. Local norms were used to develop early intervention guidelines that were evaluated against age 2…

The aim of this article is to show that a better awareness of the relationship between written and spoken communication can help the writer to improve his/her effectiveness. The focus will be on written texts that precede (formal and informal) discussions. The analysis will start with a description of the differences between orality and literacy.…

Purpose: The authors asked whether adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) could fast-map novel nouns and verbs when word learning depended on using the speaker's pragmatic or syntactic cues. Compared with typically developing (TD) comparison children, the authors predicted that syntactic cues would prove harder for the group with DS to use and that…

In this investigation we examined the relation of children's reported feelings about school during kindergarten or first grade to their academic achievement at the end of fifth grade. Participants were children (N=103) who lived in poverty during early childhood and who were placed on individualized education programs (IEPs) during their…

The goal of this study was to examine the role of Indian bilingual parents' book reading practices on the development of the children's oral language, narrative and literacy skills in English, their second language. About 24 bilingual children from two preschools in Bangalore, India were tested in schools in English on receptive vocabulary,…

This study examined the composition of vocabulary and preschoolers' vocabulary learning in an early literacy program. Fifty-six children with typical achievement, with special needs, and at risk for disabilities participated. Curriculum-based measures (CBM) were used to track children's receptive and expressive vocabulary growth over three…

Oral language skills in the preschool years are predictive of children's later reading success and literacy acquisition, and among these language skills, vocabulary and narrative ability play important roles. Children from low socioeconomic families face risks to their language development and because of threats to these skills it is important to…

Early development is likely influenced by quality of early parenting and improvements or declines in quality over time. Little is known about how changes in different dimensions of parenting influence child outcomes, nor the relative sizes of associations when considering several aspects simultaneously. These questions are addressed in the Early…