The study group consisted of 30 children with cochlear implants (CI) and 30 children with normal hearing (NH), whose ages were 4 years and 7 years 11 months. Turkish Test of Early Language Development (TEDIL) was used to assess the language skills of the children. Language samples were gathered by using Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument (ENNI).…

In 1992, the Ministry of Education and Culture in Namibia created a new language policy for schools that presented the possibility of using English as the sole medium of instruction for students starting in Grade 1. The resulting increase in schools that offer only English instruction has been detrimental to education. In order to improve the…

The study investigated the influence of universal and language-specific morpho-syntactic properties (i.e., flexible word order, case) on the acquisition of verb argument structures in German compared with English. To this end, 65 three- to nine-year-old German learning children and adults were asked to act out grammatical ("The sheep…

Poor literacy and numeracy levels in schools have raised questions in South Africa, as they have internationally, on the quality and appropriateness of initial teacher education for preparing teachers for the complexities faced in schools generally and for the mediation of literacy and numeracy in the early years in particular. This paper profiles…

This article explores how policy discourses of creativity have an impact on the way that secondary English teachers construct creativity themselves and the opportunities that they have to enact these constructions in their classrooms. In particular, it focuses on policy around language learning and creativity, identifying significant differences…

In a variety of contexts, deaf individuals often must navigate multiple societal, psychological, and physical barriers. It is frequently proposed that role models meet an important need for successful navigation in such contexts. The present article, a research synthesis, explores available literature on role models for deaf individuals, drawing…

Teachers' interactions with children represent an important source of influence in children's learning and development. Classroom organization, or the way the teacher manages the physical and behavioral aspects of the classroom environment, is one way that teachers can provide needed support to students who might otherwise struggle to be…

Theory and empirical work suggest inclusion preschool improves the school readiness of young children with special needs, but only 2 studies of the model have used rigorous designs that could identify causality. The present study examined the impacts of the Boston Public prekindergarten program-which combined proven language, literacy, and…

Across languages, children do not comprehend 3SG/3PL subject-verb agreement before age five, despite early mastery in spontaneous speech. This study investigates subject-verb agreement in a language hitherto not studied in this respect, namely Dutch. The authors examine if (1) Dutch two- and three-year-olds comprehend subject-verb agreement and…

Most basic concepts are acquired during preschool period. There are studies indicating that the basic concept knowledge of children is related to language development, cognitive development, academic achievement and intelligence. The relationship between learning behaviors (sometime called learning or cognitive styles) and a child academic success…

We report on object and action picture-naming accuracy in two groups of bilectal speakers in Cyprus, children with typical language development (TLD) and children with specific language impairment (SLI). Object names were overall better retrieved than action names by both groups. Given that comprehension for action names was relatively intact for…

Optionality is a central phenomenon in second language acquisition (SLA), for which any adequate theory must account. Amaral and Roeper (this issue; henceforth A&R) offer an appealing approach to it, using Roeper's Multiple Grammars Theory, which was created with first language in mind but which extends very naturally to SLA. They include…

In the past 15 years, a substantial body of evidence has confirmed that a powerful distributional learning mechanism is present in infants, children, adults and (at least to some degree) in nonhuman animals as well. The present article briefly reviews this literature and then examines some of the fundamental questions that must be addressed for…

Purpose: This lead article of the Clinical Forum addresses some of the gaps that exist between clinical practice and current knowledge about instructional factors that influence learning and language development. Method: Topics reviewed and discussed include principles of learning, generalization, treatment intensity, processing interventions,…

In this study we investigate young children's knowledge of syntactic constraints on Noun Phrase reference by testing 30-month-olds' interpretation of two types of transitive sentences. In a preferential looking task, we find that children prefer different interpretations for transitive sentences whose object NP is a name (e.g., "She's patting…