Drawing upon recent research findings and upon a case study of a child learning to talk and to read, the author outlines the important similarities in the development of both language and literacy. The characteristics of parent-child interaction which support language acquisition--semantic contingency, scaffolding, accountability procedures, and…

In response to O. Weininger's article, programs in various countries are cited in defense of the efficacy of early language immersion. The importance of flexibility is stressed, as is need to examine bilingual immersion in the light of educational, social, linguistic, and "political" goals, as well as psychological theory. (PP)

The importance of fully exploring the values and limitations of early language immersion programs is reiterated. The need to take children's class advantages into account in judging the effectiveness of such programs is emphasized. (PP)

Investigates the linguistic and cognitive aspects of the mastery of the time conjunctions "before" and "after" by young children. (EKN)

Explores one aspect of the possible relationship between speech perception and the awareness of linguistically relevant sound patterns in the first years of word reading. No evidence emerged of a concurrent association between children's skills in labelling speech sounds at the beginning of words and their phonological awareness of either rhyme or…

Investigates whether children ages 1;6 just beginning to learn words can learn new words in a variety of nonostensive contexts. The results of two studies involving adults interacting with children in games of searching for objects suggest that from very early in language acquisition, children learn words through active attempts to understand…

Investigates the color term knowledge of two-year olds and the influence of schooling on their color term acquisition. Findings reveal considerable knowledge in these children. Conclusions are that contemporary children's early and frequent experience with color terms may account for this cohort's improved performance over previous generations of…

Describes a mispronunciation detection task, in which listeners' sensitivity to deviations in speech is measured by their pressing a button upon hearing a mispronounced word in lists or sentences. Notes that reaction times and miss rates indicate the effects of position of a misplaced phoneme in a word, the size of the phonemic deviation, lexical…

Examines the evaluative component in bilingual discourse in order to show that for the purpose of evaluation, the bilingual often switches from one language to the other. The study examines spontaneous stories, unplanned short narratives and conversational exchanges occurring in the recorded speech of two Finnish-English bilingual children. (32…

Reports on the effects of meaning negotiation on young children's acquisition of English-as-a-Second-Language word meanings while they listened individually and in small groups to directions containing words unknown to them and to encouragement to negotiate their understanding of the directions. Results show that the children varied in their…

This longitudinal case study examined the emergence of oral language skills in a child with deafness whose cochlear implant was activated at 20 months. Normal or above-normal rates of development were observed in decreased production of nonwords, increased receptive vocabulary, type-token ratio, regular use of word combinations, and phrase…

Examination of factors underlying cross-language transfer in metaphor interpretation among bilingual (Spanish-English) 7- to 12-year-olds indicated that metaphor interpretation ability was higher in the older subjects. The level of metaphor interpretation was most strongly related to cognitive-developmental variables that were interdependent…

Explores and analyzes research concerning the effect of limited English-language proficiency on children's performance in Australian schools, focusing on educational policies, characteristics of limited-English-speaking children, attitudes toward such children, and English-as-a-Second-Language acquisition. (CB)

Maintains that child care teachers can help remedy cultural tunnel vision by promoting cultural diversity and understanding as they work with children and communicate with parents about what they are doing. (BB)

Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of young English-, French-, and Korean-speaking children showed that, across the three languages, children go through three similar developmental stages before they acquire the adult system of answering negative questions. Several language-specific phenomena were observed. (BC)