A language-delayed five-year-old underwent a pragmatic treatment program on topic performance involving the initiation of memory- and future-related topics. Within six months, the child exhibited an increase in such topic initiation and in general level of syntactic development. (Author/CB)

Differences and similarities between oral and written communication as applied to writing instruction are discussed with examples of divergent oral and written styles among speakers of nonstandard dialects, code switching between speech and writing, convergence and divergence in the development of writing skills, and the role of talking in writing…

Examines early literacy development as embedded within social contexts. Stresses the importance of approaches to teaching that build on children's earlier classroom experiences and strive to create literate communities in classrooms. (RAE)

Probes the relation between speech perception and reading ability of children who were good or poor readers. Results indicate that reading-related perception differences were especially marked in a comparison of actual and predicted discrimination scores. Identification slope and phoneme boundary differences between reader groups were found as…

Analysis of longitudinal data from four Mexican-American children to explore two aspects of the acquisition of Spanish word stress indicates that children approach such learning unbiased toward any particular stress type. Children's attention to phonetic or semantic aspects of normatively unstressed syllables leads them to shift stress to that…

Reports on a preliterate child's retelling of a story which she heard in an initial session and retold each week for eight weeks. Results suggest a child who is read to can use repeated retelling activity and eventually render the story so close to actual text that advances into reading may occur. (Author/BB)

A five-year-old hearing impaired girl who arrives at a residential school for the deaf without having had the opportunity to learn to communicate goes through the early stages of writing development. Similarities between the developmental stages of oral and written language and the importance of providing behavior models are discussed. (VW)

Maintains that by focusing on natural strategies to facilitate language interaction, adults can become instrumental in expanding the foundations of literacy of young children. Strategies include planning stimulating learning experiences utilizing contextual cues; encouraging personalized development of child language events; anticipating and…

Tests Halliday's model of context/text relationships and how these relationships vary for 71 children in first, second, and third grades. Children produced oral and written messages about a circus in narrative and persuasive genres. Texts were analyzed for elements of linguistic cohesion and length of clausal themes. (Author/CB)

In a comparative study of American English speakers and British English speakers, it was examined whether segmental effects can be used in speech production as cues to syntactic structure. American speakers could use the segmental cues in syntax perception, while British speakers could not. Speakers of British English who were long-term residents…

Describes discourse development in the sign language of 24 profoundly deaf children. Findings indicate children were acquiring appropriate discourse strategies comparable to those used by hearing children in spoken conversations and adult deaf signers. (DF)

Notes how the current emphasis on language instruction perpetuates the dominant culture. Explores the meanings first-grade children take from their oral language learning experiences and considers possible implications of those meanings and of the resistance shown by students to this production and reproduction of culture. (HTH)

Describes a study that examined the organization inherent in children's misarticulations of final consonant sounds. Specifically, it inquired whether, when children with final stop and fricative omissions are taught to produce either stops or fricatives in word-final positions, generalization occurs to untaught items or only to taught items.…

This paper analyzes the connections between the oral genres displayed by Gitano (also known as Gypsies or Romani) children and adults during religious instruction classes of an Evangelist Church and the writings produced by Gitano children in a computer after-school program of the same community. Subjects were Gitano children (n=30), ages 5-13…

The paper provides a college mathematics student's concept maps, definitions, and essays to support the thesis that language-based prior knowledge can influence students' cognitive processes of mathematical concepts. A group of intermediate algebra students who displayed terms mainly from the spoken language on the first and the second concept…