The relationship between oral reading ability and the use of structure (function) words was examined in a dissertation study which hypothesized that the use of structure words in verbal discourse would be greater in children who have no difficulty in oral reading than in children who experience difficulty. Structure words were identified as those…

This handbook serves as an introduction to the study of children's language development and as a supplementary aid in the training of research workers in the field of children's language learning. As a teaching aid, it is suggested this work be used with a film entitled "Psycholinquistic Research Techniques: Children's Language." Major chapters…

This paper considers language development among children and discusses the influence of the learning environment in the acquisition of language use as distinct from language structure. The results of the five studies reported here suggest that the child is aided by what he is encouraged to say, not simply by what he hears, and that adults seem to…

The project described in this report examines the development of Swedish-speaking children's syntax from the appearance of the first two-work sentences until all the basic syntactical rules are mastered. The procedures and techniques for the experiment are described and preliminary findings are discussed. Children practice language by repeating an…

The prelinguistic child's attempts at communication cannot be viewed as rudimentary language. More than cataloguing overt acts, we need to understand the functional character of both language and non-language communication capabilities, and in particular the maturational stages of the internal communication systems that produce overt behavior in…

This research paper summarizes several experiments in which children's speech volume was compared to the varied background noise against which they spoke. Age was found to be an important factor: 4 1/2-year-olds, as contrasted with 6 1/2-year-olds, failed to adjust their speech to make it audible over noise when talking about complex stimuli.…

Spanish-speaking children of Mexican descent living in California were tested on the acquisition of 18 Spanish consonants. The 120 subjects (aged 3 to 5:7 years) were equally divided into eight age groups, and the median ages (50%) and upper age limits (90%) of customary production of each consonant were determined. (Author/JDD)

Discusses findings from an empirical investigation of the effects of bilingualism (Spanish-English) on the creativity of language minority children in terms of the cognitive processes of divergent and convergent thinking, and the linguistic process of metaphorizing in the context of formulating scientific hypotheses. (Author/CB)

Analysis of data from the first six months of acquisition of English as a second language by a Japanese five-year-old illustrated the role of modular "chunking" and coupling in the second language acquisition process, apparent in the child's pre-copula and copula referential utterances. (Author/CB)

Explains the relationship between understanding a temporal or causal event and the ability to articulate and comprehend sentences about the event. The subjects of the research were 60 children from an Italian elementary school, 20 each from the first, third, and fifth grades. (CFM)

Discusses materials in the ERIC system that deal with the concept of scaffolding, building on children's natural language, and ways teachers have translated the concept into instructional strategies. (HTH)

This study examined the correlation between speech, language, and hearing screening results and demographic or family structure. Participating were 733 children in day care, between 3 and 6 years old, representing diverse economic and racial backgrounds. Speech, language, and hearing screenings were completed in 1989, 1993 and 1995. The Denver…

About and for teachers, this book examines children's language acquisition from the time they are born throughout the years of schooling. It tracks first and second language acquisition from birth through the school years using the experiences of a number of different children to exemplify stages and sequences of development. Chapters in the book…

A language-focused curriculum emphasizes the development of language skills as a key to learning. The curriculum is designed to be appropriate for 3- to 5-year-olds, whether having difficulty acquiring language, developing language skills at a typical rate, or learning English as a second language. Intended to accompany the first volume's…