The goal of this research was to disentangle effects of phonotactic probability, the likelihood of occurrence of a sound sequence, and neighbourhood density, the number of phonologically similar words, in lexical acquisition. Two-word learning experiments were conducted with 4-year-old children. Experiment 1 manipulated phonotactic probability…

The iambic-trochaic law has been proposed to account for the grouping of auditory stimuli: Sequences of sounds that differ only in duration are grouped as iambs (i.e., the most prominent element marks the end of a sequence of sounds), and sequences that differ only in pitch or intensity are grouped as trochees (i.e., the most prominent element…

During the first half of the 2nd year of life, infants struggle to use phonemic distinctions in label-object association tasks. Prior experiments have demonstrated that exposure to the phonemes in distinct lexical forms (e.g., /"d"/ and /"t"/ in "daddy" and "tiger", respectively) facilitates infants' use of phonemic contrasts but also that they…

Alteration of the organization of social and motivational neuroanatomical circuitry must have been an essential step in the evolution of human language. Development of vocal communication across species, particularly birdsong, and new research on the neural organization and evolution of social and motivational circuitry, together suggest that…

Contrasting results have been reported regarding the phonetic acquisition of bilinguals. A lack of discrimination has been observed for certain native contrasts in 8-month-old Catalan-Spanish bilingual infants (Bosch & Sebastian-Galles, 2003a), though not in French-English bilingual infants (Burns, Yoshida, Hill & Werker, 2007; Sundara, Polka &…

There has always been a common-sense view that the number of languages that children learn, whether through natural exposure or educational intervention, has consequences for their development. The assumption was that these consequences were potentially damaging. Even now, after approximately 50 years of research on the topic, parents remain…

This paper reviews the complex literature on language acquisition in the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Because of the high degree of interest in ASD in the past decade, the field has been changing rapidly, with progress in both basic science and applied clinical areas. In addition, psycholinguistically-trained researchers have increasingly…

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder often have restricted verbal communication. For children who do not use functional speech, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices can be an important support. We evaluated the effectiveness of one AAC programme, the Language Acquisition through Motor Planning (LAMP) using a Vantage…

An area in need of study in child language acquisition is that of complex multilingual contexts in which there is little language separation by interlocutor or domain. Little is known about how multilingual children use language to construct their identities in each language or in both languages. Identity construction in monolingual contexts has…

This study examined the effect of using a remote device, a Clicker, on the on-task behavior of middle school students with behavior problems. Five students with behavior problems participated in the study. A single-subject research design with ABAB (phase A: baseline 1, phase B: intervention 1, phase A: baseline 2, phase B: intervention 2) phases…

This longitudinal study examined developmental links between closeness in teacher-child relationships and children's receptive language ability from the end of the preschool years into the early elementary years, while controlling for changes in peer interaction quality and child behavioral functioning. The sample included children and their…

Changes in natural language environments of families receiving quantitative language feedback in Shanghai were investigated. Volunteer parents of 22 children aged 5 to 30 months were recruited from a hospital and a learning center. Quantitative measures of adult word count and conversational turns with children were collected regularly over 6…

This article explores the tensions surrounding teaching linguistically diverse students that are illuminated during a teacher inquiry group that has an explicit focus on working with English learners (ELs). The discussion is focused on the tensions teachers encounter when trying to make sense of the complexity of working with large numbers of ELs…

This paper adds to the emerging dialogue on best practices in teacher education for preparing future teachers to use technology to promote grounded theory-based practices in their classrooms. In it, I report on an evolving model for such training that resulted from a longitudinal case study examining how teacher trainees' identities, learning and…

"Shared book reading" (also known as "interactive shared book reading") encompasses practices that adults can use when reading with children, which are intended to enhance young children's language and literacy skills. During "shared book reading," an adult reads a book to an individual child or a group of children…