Discusses aspects of the thinking and language of young children that have been described by Jean Piaget and their implications for the education of young children. (Author)

The (Roger A.) McCaig article appeared in Elementary English," vol. 47, no. 5 (May 1970), pp. 612-18: How Not To Analyze the Syntax of Children"; it was critical of a study in which the author was a co-investigator ( Syntax of Kindergarten and Elementary School Children: A Transformational Analysis," 1967). (RD)

Reaction to another article in this issue, "How Not To Analyze the Syntax of Children" by Roger McCaig, pp. 612-18. (SW)

To test D. Stampe's hypothesis about the development of phonological processes, 60 children (21 to 48 months old) were placed into groups based on mean length of utterance (MLU) and chronological age. MLU was found to be the best classification for describing the phonological processes. (Author/SEW)

When asked to identify "chairs" from a series of pictures and order them as best examples, adults used contextual clues about the objects' function in their judgments. However, contextual function clues caused children's judgment to change greatly. Results are discussed in relation to theories of concept formation in children. (MSE)

Focuses on two aspects of dialog in preschool units: (1) suggests that language development is enhanced by learning through imitation, direct teaching, and opportunities to practice and experiment; and (2) suggests that staff can learn from child-child dialog and improve communication with and between children. (JOW)

A study of how variables such as motivation, constraint, difficulty, and function in questioning may affect the child's responsiveness to mother questions suggests that functionally defined question types are differentiable by both their relative power to elicit a child response and the manner in which they are presented. (MSE)

The use of linguistic and extralinguistic information in identifying conversational topics from static and active picture stimuli was studied in three- and five-year-olds. While implicit topic definition was sufficient for five-year-olds' responses, explicit definition was necessary to evoke similar responses from the younger children. (MSE)

Criticizes some recently published views on the difficulty of raising children bilingually (e.g., tolerance of children's deviations from adult speech, the influence of friends, and finding an adequate vocabulary for a foreign environment). Also discusses the use of children as subjects in language research. (EKN)

Examines children's progression in the use of humor in language from taking folktales seriously, to using humor for shock, to using humor to alter social environments. (HTH)

Discusses the variation and stability of mother speech patterns across individuals. Analyzes the functionally coded speech of 11 mothers and provides a typology of mother styles, based on the intentions of mothers to direct or converse with their children. (EKN)

Different experimental techniques for empirical assessment of children's linguistic ability have produced conflicting evidence. A number of such contradictions are discussed, in the context of an analysis of the potential weaknesses, and consequent requirements, of both comprehension and production tasks. (A commentary by P. L. Harris appears on…