Major findings are reported of a longitudinal, naturalistic study of grammatical morpheme development in an aphasic child from 5;5 to 6;1. The majority of the morphemes were not acquired in the same order nor at the same mean length of utterance (MLU) levels reported for normal children. As an alternative to the normal acquisition model, based on…

Psycholinguistic knowledge and techniques can be used as the basis for reading process research with a view to the development of a reading theory. The initial phase of such a study is reported, and reading behavior on a comprehensive basis is examined. The assumption upon which the research is based is that reading miscues are generated by the…

The use of linguistic principles in selecting reading materials is relatively recent. Several years ago at Wayne State University, over 200 principles were identified as possible criteria for the selection of materials. About 50 of these were linguistic principles, some of which conflicted with the others. Descriptive linguistics seems, at…

The tone-changing rules in Central (Standard) Thai are traditionally analyzed as having five contrasting tones--mid, low, high, falling, and rising. (Abramson's graph of the fundamental frequency variations for single vowel Thai syllables illustrates these five tones.) Theoretically, each tone may be part of any Thai syllable. Any Thai syllable…

This paper discusses the term "language universal" and posits a definition of a "counter-universal." It is proposed that the voiced aspirates of Bario Kelabit represent an exception to a posited phonological behavioral universal and are an important addition to the inventory of possible phonetic segments. (AM)

The purpose of this study was to compare mature readers' comprehension of text presented in traditional orthography with their comprehension of text presented in a regularized orthography, specifically, to determine whether, when traditional orthography is regularized, any loss of meaning is attributable to the loss of the visual dissimilarity of…

Four grade 6 classes in the Auburn Public Schools, Washington, were involved in a sequence of 30-minute lessons (8 weeks) developed by the experimenter to ascertain the effectiveness of direct systematic vocabulary instruction emphasizing prefixes, suffixes, and root words. Some elements of sentence structure, mnemonic devices, and etymology were…

A test of morpheme-based concepts was administered to 67 deaf children (ages 5-11 years) who were exposed to Seeing Essential English (SEE--a visual English sign system). (Author)

Mean length of utterance (MLU) of 15 Down's Syndrome children, aged 2-12, was examined and found to correlate highly with chronological age despite the children's language delays, at least up to MLU 3.00. MLU also predicted complexity and diversity of bound morphemes and major syntactic structures from MLU 1.00-3.50. (Author/JDD)

Reports a method of clinically inducing a phonemic split in a misarticulating child. Three stages were observed in the acquisition of this split: (1) complementary distribution (allophones of the same phoneme); (2) position-specific free variation (intermediate to the phonemic split); and (3) phonemic distribution for some morphemes (phonemic…

Describes a study to determine: (1) the relationship between age and mean length of utterance measured in morphemes (MLU) in a group of normally developing two- and three-year-old chidren; (2) the standard error of MLU; (3) the relationship between MLU and age; and, (4) the ability of MLU to predict children's grammatical development. (SED)

This paper provides an overview of second language acquisition (SLA) research over the past several decades and highlights the ways in which it has retained its original applied and linguistic interests and enhanced them by addressing questions about acquisition processes. After discussing disciplinary contexts (SLA research and applied…