This study tested the role of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)'s conversational expansion in mediating between mothers' descriptive language and children with ASD's conversational repair, and whether this mediation was moderated by the relative complexity of mother-child language. Videos of forty children with ASD engaging in various…

An important shift in language learning research is the understanding that pronunciation instruction is necessary to ensure learners' balanced development in pronunciation and second language (L2) speech. Research focusing on understanding what types of pronunciation instruction are effective and what makes them most effective has grown…

Technological and therapeutic advances have allowed many children who are born hard-of-hearing (HoH) to start school with age-appropriate spoken language skills, yet many of these children continue to find everyday conversations challenging. This scoping review maps the evidence related to development of conversation and pragmatic skills in…

Caregiver coaching is a common component of early intervention services, but providers may be unfamiliar with methods of coaching for families of children who are Deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). This article provides guidance for early interventionists to implement caregiver coaching to facilitate language development in their children who are DHH.…

Background: The aim of many interventions used by speech and language therapists (SLTs) is to change behaviours related to communication and interaction. Parent-led language interventions for children in the early years (0-5 years) rely on SLTs supporting parents to change their behaviour in child-focused interactions to effect a change in the…

Systematic reviews and maps are considered a reliable form of research evidence, but often neglect non-English-language literature, which can be a source of important evidence. To understand the barriers that might limit authors' ability or intent to find and include non-English-language literature, we assessed factors that may predict the…

This dissertation outlines three studies investigating linguistically diverse students' (including bilingual and monolingual students) language use and self-efficacy in writing. Bilingual students are those who speak a language other than English, including students with various levels of English proficiency and language experience. The first two…

Verb-marking errors such as "she play football" and "daddy singing" are a hallmark feature of English-speaking children's speech. We investigated the proposal that these errors are input-driven errors of commission arising from the high relative frequency of subject + unmarked verb sequences in well-formed child-directed…

This dissertation is a quantitative analysis of language proficiencies through the lens of the dynamic model of multilingualism, using survival analysis to evaluate time until thresholds of foreign language proficiency are reached and nonparametric tests (Wilcoxon signed rank and Kruskal-Wallis) to compare proficiencies at distinct time intervals…

Background: Public awareness of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is lower than other neurodevelopmental disorders, despite its high prevalence of 7.6%. This lower awareness means recruitment for DLD research studies is difficult. DLD is both underfunded and under-researched, resulting in relatively limited research investigating individuals…

Over recent decades much research has analyzed the relevance of 9- to 20-month-old infants' early imitation skills (object- and language-based imitation) for language development. Yet there have been few systematic comparisons of the joint relevance of these imitative behaviors later on in development. This correlational study investigated whether…

We examined the narrative abilities of bilingual and monolingual children on the autism spectrum (AS), whether bilinguals presented stronger social and pragmatic language abilities compared to monolinguals, and the link between narrative, social, and pragmatic language abilities. The narrative, social, and pragmatic language skills of school-aged…

Cross-sectional studies have shown the connections between oral language, reading, and writing skills, but there has been limited longitudinal research, especially in primary school. This study examined the relationships between oral narrative, reading, and writing skills in a longitudinal sample of 80 Italian-speaking primary school children…

Emotion understanding (EU) is a socio-cognitive skill that enables us to understand the expression of emotions in ourselves and others. Exposure to early adversity hinders its development, since quality social interactions are essential for its growth. Language is a critical component of EU, and therefore, it may be a mediator between early…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the associations of phonological, lexical, and grammatical skills within and between languages in Mandarin-English bilingual preschoolers. Method: Sixty-three Singaporean Mandarin-English bilingual children aged 3-5 years were assessed for articulation, receptive vocabulary, and receptive grammar using…