A preliminary study was conducted to identify the precipitating conditions and strategies used for vocabulary acquisition and to relate these findings to one theory of elementary and post-elementary cognitive development. Twenty-six college seniors were asked three questions regarding precipitating conditions and strategies used for vocabulary…

Data on the development of fundamental frequency patterns and the emergence of semantic relations during the "one word period" in child language development are reported in this study. The research focuses on the changes that occur as children progress from producing single words to sequences of single words and finally to producing…

The effects of level of interpersonal attraction (or friendship) on young children's language production were examined during a 15-minute play episode, in which 40 pairs of 3-5 year-olds were separated and then reunited. Friendship was measured by a picture sociometric test validated against free play choices. Language measures focused on…

This research focused on the initial stage of language development of a hearing child who was acquiring simultaneously both spoken English and American Sign Language (ASL). The report covers the first phase of the longitudinal research on the child's linguistic development, focusing on early word meanings. The data were collected from the time…

This volume discusses some of the language-related factors involved in bilingual education. The first paper surveys the major results and current research topics in the field of syntax, with an emphasis on how they might be of relevance to bilingual education. The first part of the article gives an overview on the nature of the field of syntax,…

This master's thesis focuses on the relationship between children's development of communicative competence and patterns of communication between children and their primary caregivers. An overview of major changes, since the 1950s, in the theoretical and empirical approaches to language development is presented in Chapter II. Within this overview,…

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between high risk infants' sensorimotor development and their use of intentional communications. Twenty-six 20-month-old infants, selected at birth by use of High Risk Index, were studied. At 15 months of age each infant was administered five scales from the Uzgiris-Hunt Ordinal Scales of…

A decline exists in children's ability at ages 4 and 5 to accurately respond to the difference between polar adjectives such as "big" and "tall.""Taller" and "bigger" are both taken to mean "having a higher top point," rather than "bigger" meaning "greater overall mass." Two hypotheses are put forth to explain this. The "strong cognitive…

Intended for classroom teachers, this book suggests some approaches to assessing children's language, describes some practices, and advises teachers of some of the problems in child language assessment. Chapter one provides illustrations of assessing child language usage, including looking at a piece of writing, administering a reading test,…

Seventy-two children, 18 from each of grades three, six, nine, and twelve, participated in a study of developmental changes in children's knowledge about the morphological structures underlying the spoken form of complex derived words. Three oral language tests were used to show when and how children learn that derived words are not unanalyzable…

There is ample evidence that bilinguals, even infant bilinguals, can translate naturally, i.e., without any special training for it. Yet when bilinguals apply for admission to the School of Translators at the University of Ottawa, most of them fail the entrance examination. The reasons are several: (1) Most natural translation is oral, not…

Two English-speaking six-year-olds attending a French-speaking kindergarten in Montreal were tested for the content of their French L2 (second language) utterances. An adaptation of the mean length of utterance (MLU) index was used to judge the order of acquisition in the encoding of semantic-syntactic relations in the second language. The same…

Pronunciation of words with a fricative content was elicited over a seven-month period from seven English-speaking children ranging in age from 1;5 to 2;3. The recorded speech was analyzed for correct fricative production and substitutions. Results indicate that: (1) overall percentage of correct production is slightly higher in final position…

The discussion throughout this paper is devoted to answering the question: What is the nature of our knowledge of language and what theoretical assumptions does the answer entail for linguistic description? Discussed are--(1) what it means to know a language, (2) the distinction between linguistic competence and performance, (3) justification of…

James Macdonald introduces six papers on various aspects of language and meaning in the development of educational curricula. Dwayne Huebner discusses traditional tasks and educational realities and points out value systems affecting curricula. He concludes that educators should free themselves from present methodologies and find new ways to…