Perinatal histories and developmental data for the first year of life were examined for 46 children who failed a screening test for use by nonprofessional interviewers in the home situation for evaluation of language and speech development in 3-year-old children. (Author/KW)

A diagnostic classification system for phonological disorders is presented which is oriented to the goals of explanation, prediction, and management. Data supporting the validity and utility of the system are also provided, based on a retrospective classification of 43 children with delayed speech. (Author/SEW)

Reviewed are language research thrusts of the 1970s relevant to language-delayed children: the change in focus to communication, rather than vocal requirements, and examinations of caretaker-infant interactions. Concerning language intervention with severely delayed children, language content and use objectives are identified and parent…

The development of spoken language is considered from three related aspects: symbolic function, auditory-vocal function and communicative function. Attention is drawn to the implications for education of developmental delay in any of these areas. Some of the danger signals presented in the classroom are mentioned. (Author/KC)

Deals with an examination of available evidence concerning the speech of language impaired children, and an inspection of the evidence regarding other, nonlinguistic behaviors of these children that require related abilities in mental representation. (Author/MP)

A study of 25 toddlers with expressive language delays and their mothers investigated whether a focused stimulation intervention concentrating on lexical training had indirect, secondary effects on the children's phonological abilities. Results indicate the toddlers that received the intervention made treatment gains in two areas of phonological…

Evaluation of the speech of five Dutch-speaking adolescent girls with Down's syndrome found that speech errors tended to be identical to the error patterns in young normal children supporting the view that misarticulations in Down's syndrome subjects are mainly the result of a delay in speech development. (Author/DB)

Misspellings evidenced by 69 3rd graders in a battery containing 25 words and 20 nonsense syllable items were analyzed phonologically. Children with histories of disordered phonologies (n=29) showed more phonologically based deviations in their misspellings, relied more on less productive spelling strategies, and showed poorer phonological…

This study used survival analysis to overcome problems of principled generalization and individual variability in analysis of the conversational speech of 24 children with speech delay recorded over two years. The derived normalization probabilities were lagged according to the strong delay hypothesis and results converged with previous normative…

This study compared effects of two styles of storybook reading on the interpretations of two preschool children experiencing delayed language development. One used expansions and cloze procedures; the other provided questions and modeling of appropriate answers. Children produced more answers to questions, more interpretations, and more complex…

A comparison of 46 language-delayed and 62 normal language onset children examined whether early language delay would predict autistic symptomatology in children diagnosed with autism when young and at an older age. Results found that early language delays predicted more autistic symptomatology when young, but not at an older age. (Author/CR)

This study provides insights into the benefits of phoneme awareness intervention for children with complex communication needs (CCN). The specific aims of the study were: (1) to determine whether phoneme awareness skills can be successfully trained in children with CCN; and (2) to observe any transfer effects to phoneme awareness tasks not…

This paper reviews research on the consequences of prenatal exposure to alcohol and cocaine on children's speech, language, hearing, and cognitive development. The review shows that cognitive impairment, learning disabilities, and behavioral disorders are the central nervous system manifestations of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), and cranio-facial…