Before they even talk, infants become sensitive to the speech sounds of their native language and recognize the auditory form of an increasing number of words. Traditionally, these early perceptual changes are attributed to an emerging knowledge of linguistic categories such as phonemes or words. However, there is growing skepticism surrounding…

Background: Early childhood is a critical period of language development. Yet less is known about how language growth relates to the development of phoneme awareness and cognitive flexibility during this period. Aims: To examine the longitudinal associations between growth in phonological awareness and cognitive flexibility from 4 to 5 years in…

Children can acquire novel word meanings by using pragmatic cues. However, previous literature has frequently focused on in-the-moment word-to-meaning mappings, not delayed retention of novel vocabulary. Here, we examine how children use pragmatics as they learn and retain novel words. Thirty-three younger children (mean age: 5.0, range: 4.0-6.0,…

Background Study: The combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and foreign language learning is emerging as a significant trend in language education. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the impact of technology acceptance, attitude and motivation on behavioural intentions regarding the use of AI in language learning. Methods:…

Background: Tamil is a member of the Dravidian language family, and it is spoken extensively in several South Asian countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore. The phonological development of Tamil-speaking children is examined in the current study within the context of lexical development by including children with typical…

Purpose: This study investigates the acquisition of aspect markers by Mandarin-speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) in comparison to typically developing aged-matched (TDA) children and typically developing younger (TDY) children through the aspect hypothesis (AH). Method: A sentence-picture matching task and a priming…

Early childhood language-promoting initiatives, such as Talk with Me Baby (TWMB), are positively associated with young children's development across multiple domains and contexts. Less is known about the potential impact of TWMB in a rural setting that focuses on training preservice students who serve families from culturally and linguistically…

This study tested a statistically significant relationship between the pragmatic principle concerning iconicity of sequence and temporal adjuncts. While previous studies focused on the qualitative studies of temporal adjuncts with the textual analysis of English for everyday use, such as cookbooks and novels in English, this study contributed to…

Parents play a critical role in supporting the language development of children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). Research shows that key parent-child interaction factors--such as parental sensitivity, non-intrusiveness, and joint attention--are strongly linked to better language outcomes in DHH children. The quantity and quality of…

In the United States, approximately 11.8% of students receiving special education are Emergent Bilingual (EB) students (Office of Special Education Programs [OSEP], 2022). Emergent bilingual students are frequently referred to as English Learners (ELs) or Limited English Proficient (LEP) students which portray them through a deficit lens and…

"The 30-million-word gap," the quantified difference in the amount of speech that children growing up in low-resourced homes hear compared to their peers from high-resourced homes, is a phrase that has entered the collective consciousness. In the discussion of quantity, the complex and nuanced environments in which children learn…

In the United States, individualized language plans (ILPs) have gained traction across K-12 schools. Much like the Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) used in special education, ILPs outline individualized goals, accommodations, and services for multilingual learners for their language development; however, unlike IEPs, ILPs are developed at…

This article provides a theoretical and empirical argument in support of explicit language instruction. It proposes on theoretical grounds that certain features of a language are sufficiently complex and subtle that learners are unlikely to be able to decipher their full conceptual meaning on the basis of exposure alone. It further proposes that…

Research shows that experiences with nature have positive direct and indirect effects on multiple domains of child development, including language skills. However, few studies have examined the relationship between young children's language and outdoor nature settings. In this quantitative study, we compared children's language use in an indoor…

Modals (e.g., "can," "must") vary along two dimensions of meaning: "force" (i.e., possibility or necessity), and "flavor" (i.e., possibilities relative to knowledge [epistemic], goals [teleological], or rules [deontic] …). Comprehension studies show that children struggle with both force and flavor…