We examined the effects of object attributes on children's descriptive patterns in a referential communication task. Thirty preschoolers described object pairs that were selected by the experimenter. The targets were defined by shared size or colour, and differed on the non-target dimension in half of the trials. The children also completed a…

Analyses of elicited pantomime, primarily of English-speaking children, show that preschool-aged children are more likely to symbolically represent an object with gestures depicting an object's form rather than its function. In contrast, anecdotal reports of spontaneous gesture production in younger children suggest that children use multiple…

In this commentary, Flores states that language policing traps language-minoritized students in the position of having to reject their home language practices as inferior to the language practices of schooling. Language-minoritized students who are unable or unwilling to conform to these expectations, says Flores, are placed in the solitary…

The shape bias--generalising labels to same shaped objects--has been linked to attentional learning or referential intent. We explore these origins in children with typical development (TD), autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other developmental disorders (DD). In two conditions, a novel object was presented and either named or described.…

In the current study, we examined the developmental course of the perception of non-native tonal contrast. We tested 4, 6 and 12-month-old Dutch infants on their discrimination of Chinese low-rising tone and low-dipping tone using the visual fixation paradigm. The infants were tested in two conditions that differed in terms of degree of…

We revisit morpheme studies to evaluate the long-standing claim for a universal order of acquisition. We investigate the L2 acquisition order of six English grammatical morphemes by learners from seven L1 groups across five proficiency levels. Data are drawn from approximately 10,000 written exam scripts from the Cambridge Learner Corpus. The…

Languages differ greatly in how they express causal events. In languages like Japanese, the subjects of causative sentences, or "causers," are generally animate and intentional, whereas in other languages like English, causers range widely from animate beings to inanimate objects (e.g. Wolff, Jeon & Li, 2009). This paper explores…

In the United States, early childhood educators are expected to follow the trend to enforce academic curriculum for preschoolers. This effort diminishes the value of play in the young developmental years of children. The purpose of this study was to explore the type of activities and strategies that promote development of language and literacy…

One of the defining characteristics of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a severe deficit in the area of social communication. Script fading interventions are used to promote language development and are associated with an increase in novel language for individuals with ASD. Sixteen single-case design studies of script fading…

This edited book seeks to evolve a global community of practice to share case studies, engage in critical discussion and spearhead thought leadership, to address the paradigm shift in next generation educational practice. This book showcases novel research studies in various forms and engenders interdisciplinary conversation and exchange…

One in three children enrolled in US early childhood programs is a dual language learner. While dual language learners have been the target of sweeping educational reforms under the guise of justice, these reforms--which pathologize dual language learners as problems to be remediated rather than assets to be developed--have largely ignored the…

Background: In recent years many studies have shown that the use of cochlear implants (CIs) improves children's skills in processing the auditory signal and, consequently, the development of both language comprehension and production. Nevertheless, many authors have also reported that the development of language skills in children with CIs is…

This article provides information on an action research project in a low-level EFL setting in Japan. The project aims were to (1) foster spoken communication skills and (2) help students engage with their own learning. The project investigated the applicability of board games as a mediating tool for authentic communication as part of a wider TBLT…

We present a series of experiments investigating English-speaking children's comprehension of "it"-clefts and "wh"-pseudoclefts. Previous developmental work has found children to have asymmetric difficulties interpreting object clefts. We show that these difficulties disappear when clefts are presented in felicitous contexts,…

Intellectual engagement (IE) refers to enjoyment of intellectual activities and is proposed as causal for knowledge acquisition. The role of IE for cognitive development was examined utilizing 2-year longitudinal data from 112 ninth graders (average baseline age: 14.7 years). Higher baseline IE predicted higher baseline crystallized ability but…