An investigation was made of the episodic structure of maternal speech to young children during a free-play session. Findings indicate that maternal speech was organized so as to provide a high degree of redundancy, suggesting that the organization of maternal speech increases predictability in the child's language environment. (Author/AM)

Reports on a longitudinal study of the acquisition of the voicing contrast in American English word-initial stop consonants as measured by voice-onset time. The rate and nature of the developmental process are discussed in relation to two competing models of phonological acquisition and two hypotheses regarding the skills being learned. (Author/AM)

This study is an attempt to investigate the efficacy of using existing semantic relations categories for understanding how children comprehend the verb "with" + noun construction. (Author)

This article discusses a study designed to determine the order of acquisition of the two expressions "in front of" and "behind," using two featureless objects. (CFM)

Reports on research into the early semantic-syntactic utterances of deaf children as compared to those of learning children. It is suggested that differences in acquisition patterns may be attributable to the pedagogical nature of deaf language acquisition. (Author/AM)

Analyzes the order in which selected structures of English are acquired by young speakers of English vs speakers of Cantonese, Spanish, Tagalog, and Ilokano and draws implications for instruction. (MKM)

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…