Eighteen preschoolers with language impairments who had participated in a highly effective five-month intervention that focused on expressive grammar received an additional five-month intervention. Although participants improved during Phase 2, improvements generally were not as strong as those noted for Phase l. The costly clinician-administered…

Compared 100 three-year-olds with speech delay of unknown origin and 539 same-age peers with respect to 6 speech disorder variables; also examined abnormal hearing in a subset of 279 children. Found significant odds ratios only for low maternal education, male sex, and positive family history; a child with all 3 factors was 7.71 times as likely to…

Examines the case of two five-year-old twin boys with delayed language development, yet judged to be articulate and successful students in kindergarten. Suggests that the delay appeared because most of their interaction had been with each other. However, through their family they became acquainted with the discourse activities that are valued at…

Ten preschool children with developmental phonological disorders were followed for seven years. Analyses characterize the sequence, rates, and error patterns of long-term speech-sound normalization in relation to developmental perspectives. Findings support the hypothesis of a critical period for speech-sound development, with long-term…

Fifteen caregivers each glossed a simultaneously videotaped and audiotaped sample of their child with speech delay in conversation with a clinician. Comparison with a reference gloss developed for each sample indicated that caregivers accurately understood an average of 58% of the utterances and 73% of the words. (Author/DB)

The study evaluated prediction of language quality using 3 approaches (neurodevelopmental, cognitive, and combination) with 37 developmentally delayed children (ages 5-9). Results indicated that these children had language and speech delays that showed substantial relationships to their verbal cognitive abilities and fine motor skills, in addition…

Preschool teachers of children with attentional disorders and delays need to increase pupil engaged time for effective language learning, through such techniques as following the child's lead, providing novelty, using interactive teaching techniques (e.g., incidental teaching, mand-model technique, systematic commenting), and using activity-based…

Although child maltreatment has often been described as leading to language deficits, the few well-controlled investigations of language acquisition in maltreated children have focused on language content rather than form, or have used qualitative rather than quantitative measures. This study examines syntactic complexity in 19 maltreated and 14…

The study sought to identify effective procedures for facilitating initial imitative vocal behavior in mentally retarded children, thus accelerating the initial stages of language acquisition. Three groups of Down syndrome children ages 6 months to 4 years (N=15) served as subjects in an examination of the relative effectiveness of three…

The syndrome of childhood autism is typified by major abnormalities in language development, yet there are few systematic descriptions of autistic children's linguistic systems. This paper represents the beginning of a comprehensive investigation of the language of verbal autistic children and concentrates on comparing the syntax used by ten…

Presents four articles in the context of workshop discussions on characteristics of environments that promote language development: (1) "Children's Conversations: Why are They Important?"; (2) "Ways of Talking: Respecting Differences"; (3) Paul's Talk: Teachers and Parents Look at a Child's Language"; and (4) "In the…

Ten two-year-old children with periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), a brain injury associated with prematurity, were evaluated using language samples. The five children with delayed cognitive ability produced significantly fewer lexical tokens and spontaneous verbal utterances than did chronological age-matched nondelayed PVL children. (Author/DB)

A conceptual framework for short-term and long-term speech-sound normalization research is presented, and 1-year normalization outcomes for the 54 children described in EC 609 708 are reported. Although certain individual speech variables were significantly associated with normalization, there were no speech, prosody-voice, or risk-factor…

This study examined the relationship among language proficiency, behavior problems, and other areas of development in 36 children (ages 36 to 40 months). A strong association was found between deficiencies in both expressive and receptive language and behavioral difficulties. Specifically, deficits in expressive language at age 2 were more…

Brian Schaffer, now a 21-year-old college junior, spent prekindergarten through 7th grade at Green Acres School, a 320-student Rockville, Maryland, private school where his parents say he had the benefit of small class sizes and teachers who could accommodate his needs, which included attention deficit disorder, speech and language delays, and…