SEMANTIC DISCRIMINATION OF POLYSEMOUS ENTRY WORDS IN BILINGUAL DICTIONARIES WAS DISCUSSED IN THE PAPER. HANDICAPS OF PRESENT BILINGUAL DICTIONARIES AND BARRIERS TO THEIR FULL UTILIZATION WERE ENUMERATED. THE AUTHOR CONCLUDED THAT (1) A BILINGUAL DICTIONARY SHOULD HAVE A DISCRIMINATION FOR EVERY TRANSLATION OF AN ENTRY WORD WHICH HAS SEVERAL…

Hearing impaired adolescents were administered one of four tests of syntax in preposition usage. Results indicated a clear developmental sequence: generally prepositions are first acquired in locative phrases, then as temporals, and then as manner relationships. The acquisition process is detailed. The author concludes that the complexity and…

Presents a model which details the ways in which children in different language communities acquire the morphophonological structure of their language. (JMB)

Notes that three papers and commentary (in this issue) emphasized importance of including data on manual modality when studying language development and its relationship to other domains. Discusses advantages of using robustness analysis rather than precursor relations to study domain relations. Suggests alternative theoretical context to which…

Results of a comparative study of speech-like vocalizations of a deaf infant and 11 hearing infants indicated that from eight to 13 months, the deaf subject differed strikingly from hearing infants of comparable age. The topography of the deaf infant's vocalizations resembled that of four- to six-month-old hearing infants. (Author/CL)

The paper describes the beginnings of a total developmental language learning system for mainstreamed visually impaired children in Israel. The readiness program is divided into five sections: auditory perception and discrimination, tactile perception and discrimination and fine motor coordination, gross motor coordination, body image awareness,…

Results of the study involving 13 language-impaired children (two to three years old) indicated that unsolicited imitations play comparable facilitative roles in the lexical acquisition of normal and language-impaired children. (Author/CL)

A literature review (1964-present) highlights several theoretical issues: the relationship of play in facilitating language and cognition, play as an intervention, and play as an assessment tool. Difficulties in research methodology are cited. The appropriateness of play therapy is questioned, and evidence is presented to provide encouragement for…

Twelve language disordered second graders scored significantly lower on inference items than the cognitively matched control group of second graders on verbal and picture tasks. There was no significant difference between language disordered and kindergarten Ss for either the overall or conditional analysis. Results were interpreted as indicative…

Analysis of spontaneous language samples of six children (two to four years old) at three linguistic ages (defined by mean length of utterance in morphemes) replicated the proposed semantic ordering of question types. However, a stage characterized by uninverted forms was not supported. (CL)

The article shows significant steps by the thinkers of the eighteenth century to reevaluate in a more realistic way the whole problem of language's origin and of the physical conditions that determine the acquisition of speech by humankind. (Author/CL)

Eight adults with autistic disorders and eight IQ-matched, mentally retarded (MR) subjects were given a task involving the comprehension of structured and unstructured indirect requests. Although the performance of the MR subjects was better in both conditions, both groups performed similarly to normal four- to six-year-olds. (Author/CL)

The influence of referent type (Objects vs. Actions) and within-category referent relationships (functionally similar vs. perceptually similar) upon acquisition of lexical concepts by 12 infants were examined. Ss acquired object words and concepts in greater numbers than action words and concepts, suggestive of differences in the underlying…

Results suggested that children with Downs Syndrome are at the same level of cognitive development as are nonretarded children at the onset of both comprehension and production of object names. Soon after language acquisiton begins, however, early vocabulary development of children with Down's Syndrome begins to lag behind their cognitive…