The Structured Observation System (SOS) is a data collection method developed to document changes in the communication behaviours of children identified with speech and language delays. The system employs a rating scale which reflects the occurrence of communication behaviours as well as the amount of assistance needed for behaviours to occur.…

This article evaluates the utility of the Early Authors Program, a 12-month early literacy intervention emphasizing highly meaningful language interactions that was implemented in childcare facilities in an ethnically and linguistically diverse, urban, low-income community. Children learn to be writers and readers by creating their own…

This study investigates the relationship between theory of mind (ToM) skills in deaf children and input from their hearing mothers. Twenty-two hearing mothers and their deaf children (ages 4-10 years) participated in tasks designed to elicit talk about the mind. The mothers' mental state talk was compared with that of 26 mothers with hearing…

From the beginning of life, a child's acts of meaning are joint constructions, enacted through dialogue between himself and a significant other by reference to whom he is achieving a personal identity. When the child begins to control his material environment, he begins the transition to systematic symbolic construction. At the same time, he is…

This study investigated the nature and extent of differences in young children's talk when they interact with mothers and peers. Sixteen girls between 2.5 and 3.5 years of age played twice with their mothers and twice with a peer. Play sessions were videotaped and coded according to measures of quantity and quality of talk. Results of measures of…

A study investigating the acquisition of empty categories (ECs) in Sinhala, a language of the Indo-Aryan family spoken in Sri Lanka, is reported in part. The results examined here concern ECs occurring in a subset of adverbial clause types differing with regard to the kinds of null subjects they permit, including those obligatorily coindexed,…

This examination focuses on the idea that child language acquisition is constrained by the same principles that have been found to hold on syllable structure across languages. First, a recently-proposed constraint on syllable structure, the Sonority Cycle, is outlined, and the way that it accounts for syllabic structure across languages is…

A study investigated children's use of three acoustic parameters (intensity, fundamental frequency, and duration) in the production of two-syllable nonsense words. Subjects were six children each at ages 2, 3, and 4 years with age-appropriate language skills and normal hearing sensitivity. An examiner produced eight novel two-syllable words of…

Designed to grade children's knowledge of commonly used instructional terms in a particular language arts program, the AIT consists of a verbal part and a situational part. Each part assesses the same commonly used instructional terms: word, begin, letter, name, makes sense, beginning sounds, print, trace, capital letter, rhyme, period, stands…

The use of observation of natural language interaction as a measure of language proficiency and the impact of discourse characteristics on children's use of Spanish and English as measured by length of utterances are examined. The goal of this observational approach to measuring language proficiency is to distinguish between the effects of change…

Dialogues of sets of socially similar twins are studied. The opinion that twins have slower syntactic development than non-twins is seriously questioned. Dialogues with twins saying the same utterance together, correcting each other, quarreling, playing verbal games, etc. are analyzed in their deep structure. (SCC)

Through discussion and illustrative events, an evolving segment of communication is described during the course of transition of one child's total communication system from the sensorimotor or gestural level at 12 months into the level of use of the adult words "more" and "mine," and associated utterances, at 24 months. (Author/RM)

Results are reported of a study of voice onset time characteristics of stops in initial clusters in American English words produced by children and adults. (Author/RM)

Second language learning in adults is compared to a child's acquisition of its native language in that learning is said to be governed by universal learning strategies rather than imitation. The strategy of simplification is discussed with examples from Indonesian/Malay. (Author/RM)