Confirms a trend in an earlier study for high-contact Aboriginals to perform on classification tests at about the same level as white children in a similar environment, despite the markedly lower verbal intelligence quotient scores of Aboriginal children. (RJ)

Normal and abnormal language development depends to a great degree on the nature of the infant-mother relationship. (Author)

Indicates that 18- to 20-month-old infants can detect the correspondence between auditorially and visually perceived speech; that is, they manifest some of the components related to lip-reading phenomena in adults. This demonstration of the bimodal perception of speech in infancy has important implications for social, cognitive, and linguistic…

Suggests ways of using teacher-produced photographs in English and language-arts classrooms. Offers examples of how a series of pictures was used and how students responded. (RL)

Considers some of the obvious causes of our nation's verbal crisis. Presents methods for treating symptoms at the college and secondary level and prescribes preventive measures at lower levels that will heighten verbal awareness, interest, and skills. (Author/RK)

The author is the director of the English Speaking Board, an organization which brings together people from all walks of life who are concerned with oral communication as a means to the "improvement of personal relationships and the sharing of personal endeavor". Here she focuses on 3-13 year-old children and their verbal development. (Editor/RK)

The speech of two mothers to their infants between three and eighteen months was analyzed. Simplicity of speech was about the same at all ages, not showing abrupt change as children began to talk. It is suggested that mothers used a conversational model and changes reflect children's growing conversational ability. (CHK)

This study examined the relationship between adaptive functioning and intellectual functioning in 18 children with autism and mental retardation and 20 children with mental retardation. The children with autism showed significantly more impairment in adaptive behavior composite scores, verbal reasoning abilities, socialization skills, and…

This article offers a framework for language intervention focusing on conversational interaction, suggests some parallels between oral conversations and the development of literacy, and offers guidelines for facilitating the development of language and literacy. Implications for a model of written language are discussed. (PB)

Language abilities from age 2-5 were studied in 4 children with early language delays. Deficits became milder and more selective, with normal or nearly normal speech/language proficiency by age 60 months. But at 3-year follow up, 3 of the 4 cases were severely reading disabled. (Author/JDD)

Attempts to determine whether children can use social-pragmatic cues to determine "what kind" of referent, object, or action an adult intends to indicate with a novel word. Doubts that children assume that a novel word refers to whatever nameless object is present. Suggests that lexical acquisition rests fundamentally on children's…