This study investigates the onset at periodic intervals in the age range of about two to five years of various kinds of recurrent and systematic errors in word choice and/or syntactic structure. Acquisitional processes and their implications are outlined. Sections address: (1) the kinds of processes that can be inferred to underlie errors…

The study reported here examined the use of color terms by 36 male and female students in kindergarten through fifth grade in a suburban New York City school. The children were asked to label colors using the fanciest color term they could. The only significant difference found was between younger females and older females, tentatively indicating…

Current opinion regarding the nature of the young child's representation of two or more languages is that there is one system during the earliest stages of development. This paper explores theoretical and methodological difficulties underlying this issue. Theoretically, it is questioned what is being claimed about the child's cognitive capacities…

A study examined the type of Wh question (those introduced by who, what, when, where, why, or how) and the phrase structure rules required for the verb phrase to determine how they relate to the acquisition and development of the Wh question transformation. Children ranging in age from 2 to 6 years were given three tasks, each containing 36…

An oral screening test administered by an adult to a five-year-old child was transcribed and analyzed. The test was chosen as an example of a referential communication task that is also a social communication task. The analysis demonstrates that a participant in communication assumes that the other participants are employing strategies for…

A case study of the period of repetitive babbling in one Dutch infant is reported. Repetitive babbling is seen as a systematic and continuous process, during which the child is applying certain strategies in order to form concepts concerning the possibilities of his or her articulatory apparatus. Strategies identified are: (1) variation…

The symbolic representational block constructions of twenty 4-year-olds and twenty 7-year-olds were analyzed from Werner and Kaplan's (1963) theoretical perspective. Each child was read a story and then asked to use the blocks to represent the story. Older children included in their representations a larger number of features that were central to…

The following articles of interest to teachers of English as a second language (ESL) are included: (1) "Guided Writing in a High School" by Jean Brent; (2) "The Silent Way--Report on a Workshop" by Andrew Weiler; (3) "Multicultural Education: Report on an In-Service Day" by Helen Crain-Welsby; (4) "An ESL…

Elementary school students were required to obtain objects from two adults engaged in conversation with each other. Results differed markedly between older and younger children. For the younger children, (1) there were three times as many statement requests (SRs) as interrogative requests (IRs); (2) almost 50% of requests were need statements; (3)…

A Sample of 576 children participated in a study to determine the manner in which children retain narrative material, what information they retain, and the effects of sex and age upon these aspects of memory. The children, ranging in age from six to eight years, listened to a tape recorded story in individual sessions. Half of them were asked to…

On the assumption that word frequency in written language as well as children's knowledge of words can provide the basis for a systematic contextual approach to reading vocabulary development, six current reading series and their workbooks (grades two through six) were analyzed for their presentation of prefixed words in context. Results of the…

This paper discusses the process of culture acquisition and recommends a new methodology for investigating this process. An examination of the relationship between culture acquisition and cognitive development is followed by a discussion of the way previous research has dealt with this relationship. It is argued that recent developments in…

The focus article in this newsletter contains a discussion of the theory of reading as a thinking process and offers practical suggestions for implementing instruction in teaching reading as a thinking process. The section on theory is based on observations of the reading process as perceived by psycholinguists such as Frank Smith and Kenneth…