The interplay between self-regulation related skills and language is well recognized in dynamic theories, but few empirical studies have tested it, especially in toddlers. The current study examines the bidirectional links between self-regulation related skills and expressive vocabulary in a longitudinal study during toddlerhood. Participants were…

Smartphone use is ubiquitous in the lives of parents, and an emerging area of research is investigating how parental smartphone use during parent-child interactions affects children's language outcomes. Findings point toward negative outcomes in language development, but it is less clear what processes affect language outcomes. Gaze following,…

Studies on multilingual word learning have focused on identifying a bilingual advantage over monolingual peers, paying little attention to the relationships between bilinguals' existing vocabulary size and novel word learning. This study compared monolingual and bilingual school-age children on word learning tasks in familiar and unfamiliar…

The positive psychology movement (Seligman, 1998) has contributed to the proclamation of a positive turn in second language acquisition (SLA) (MacIntyre et al., 2016). Within the context of individual differences, "self-efficacy" (Bandura, 1997), an individual's judgment of their capability to achieve goals, has gained particular…

Recent studies have revealed that the development of self-regulation and social skills in preschool children is important for later academic success, social acceptance and psychological wellbeing. Children who lack these skills are at risk for not being able to socialize and may face rejection behaviors among peers, show aggressive behaviors, or…

Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is related to disparities in the development of both language and executive functioning (EF) skills. Emerging evidence suggests that language development may precede and provide necessary scaffolding for EF development in early childhood. The present preregistered study investigates how these skills co-develop…

While most animals have communication systems, few exhibit such high-level of complexity as human languages. One central question of linguistics and cognitive science is to explore what human cognitive underpinnings and learning mechanisms are necessary to master such a complex system. One influential approach is Chomskyan generativism which…

We examined the evolution of social pretend play in toddlers and tested whether children's age, gender, and language abilities were associated with changes in social pretend play over time. We employed a unique observational data set that followed 28 children (M[subscript age] = 27 months old; 57% boys) with each of two unfamiliar peers over 18…

Language and self-regulation develop bidirectionally, and they synergistically affect most aspects of acquiring reading proficiency. Children and youth from historically marginalized communities tend to have less expansive knowledge of academic vocabulary and dialect common to instruction and academic text (i.e., General American English), and…

The linguistic and cognitive importance of early language exposure for deaf children is well reported in the literature. However, most of such studies have been conducted in industrialized countries with less of such studies conducted in developing and nonindustrialized countries such as Ghana. Therefore, hinged on the social interactionist theory…

Aided language stimulation is an augmented input strategy that facilitates the expressive and receptive language skills of persons who require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The aim of this study was to determine and compare the acquisition of receptive vocabulary items during implementation of aided language stimulation with…

This study aims to investigate the characteristics of special educational assistance provided to children with language disorders (LDs) attending ordinary early childhood education and care institutions (ECECs) in Norway, with a focus on objectives for language development and language interventions. An in-depth document analysis of 71 pedagogical…

Responding to concerns that play is at risk in the early years of education, this article investigates teachers' current use of play in language and literacy instruction in Grade 1 and 2 Alberta classrooms. It addresses what teachers say they need to make play part of school-based language and literacy education. Survey findings show a recognition…

Lexical frequency benchmarks have been extensively used to investigate second language (L2) lexical sophistication, especially in language assessment studies. However, indices based on semantic co-occurrence, which may be a better representation of the experience language users have with lexical items, have not been sufficiently tested as…

Recent years have seen a flourishing of Natural Language Processing models that can mimic many aspects of human language fluency. These models harness a simple, decades-old idea: It is possible to learn a lot about word meanings just from exposure to language, because words similar in meaning are used in language in similar ways. The successes of…