Assesses the relationship between production deficits and speech perception abilities. A categorical perception paradigm was administered to a group of communication disordered children and to a matched control group. Group results are tentatively interpreted as showing a moderate perceptual deficit in the communication disordered children of this…

Reports on a study of the acquisition of personal inflections in Portuguese, and presents an analysis of the speech of one of the children followed in the longitudinal study. (AM)

This study demonstrates the influence of a visit to the United States on the communicative competence in English of a bilingual child who lives in Rome, Italy, with his American mother and Italian father. (CFM)

The use children make of utterances and messages seems to be of great relevance to teachers, because it is possible to facilitate and stimulate certain language uses by planning the educational setting. Discusses one theory of language function in order to clarify the problems and perspectives of this kind of psycholinguistic research. (Author/RK)

This bibliography on child bilingualism in France contains 82 entries distributed among three sections: 1) psychosociologic and cultural aspects of migrant worker children, learning conditions; 2) bilingual-bicultural education, experiences and methodological problems; and 3) bilingualism in the countries of origin. (Text is in French.) (TL)

Reviews research to date dealing with attempts to conceptualize a framework for analysis of communication skills acquired in early childhood years. (MH)

Suggests that the concept of an interactive environment has significant ramifications for re-assessing and/or formulating a contemporary, comprehensive theory of language acquisition. (MH)

The phonotactic development of one child is traced from age 3;9 to 5;3. Data are presented in a table indicating both the child's phonological equivalent of adult consonant sequences and the range distinguished by the child at a given stage. (CHK)

Argues, from a sociolinguistic perspective, that second language (L2) research could usefully engage with some of the debates concerning postmodernity. Suggests that globalization presents an important range of empirical phenomena requiring serious L2 study. Indicates the kinds of linguistic assumptions that ideas about postmodernity draw into…

This article looks into why infants learn to talk, using a series of illustrative proposals as to the short- and long-term consequences to the infant behaviors that lead to linguistic competence. The goal of the article is to encourage investigation of behavioral dispositions that nudge the child toward proficiency in the use of the spoken…

Videotape recordings of interaction of 42 preschool children in same-sex dyads were coded and analyzed to see how these children used the word "no" in their interactions. Results showed that, although boys and girls used the word equally frequently, they were found to use it in different ways. (Author/JL)

Examined four-year olds' use of mental state terms in conversations. Found that more references to mental states were made in conversations with siblings and friends than with mothers. Frequent use of terms by both partners was related to cooperative interaction in child-friend and child-sibling dyads. Found associations with measures of language…

Replies to a report on three toddlers who evidenced a late vocabulary spurt. The article argues that differences in assessing productive vocabulary and the questionable inference that size of the lexicon is a reliable indicator of the vocabulary spurt make it inappropriate to compare these children to previous studies directly measuring change in…

Argues that there is still an underdeveloped conceptual framework to the British National Curriculum's primary oracy curriculum as a whole, despite the recent School Curriculum and Assessment Authority's "Exemplification of Standards" booklet. Attempts to construct a useful conceptual framework for classroom oracy using different concepts which…

Examines the use and structure of so-called nonfinite root clauses, including root infinitives and root supines, in Swedish child language. Investigation of four Swedish child language corpora shows that children use nonfinite root clauses in a systematic way. Also shows that children's use of root infinitives is closely associated with a…