Discusses research with children with learning problems to discover, through their narratives, in what ways they were disabled and what ways they were competent with language and to test the narrative mind theory to see if their stories could be interpretive metaphors for their lives. (HTH)

Poses and answers several questions parents and teachers have about the value of invented spelling. (FL)

Describes the structure and emergence of extended argument sequences produced by preschool children. Provides a system for analyzing turns that initiate, elaborate, and terminate argument sequences. Draws conclusions regarding the development of proficiency in producing argument and interaction. (PD)

Touches on the cognitive and self-discovery processes and imagination and creativity children experience before their verbal skills are fully developed. (HTH)

Discusses the interacitonal function of language. (FL)

The behavior of a preverbal infant was analyzed in a search for orderly and systematic patterns. Basic elements of the infant's repertoire were distinguished. A comparison was made between the nonverbal and those verbal structures which appear early. (Author/RM)

This issue addresses the linguistic equalization of men and women in Switzerland. It features articles in four languages (French, German, Italian, and Raeto-Roman), providing an overview over Switzerland's four linguistic regions, new perspectives, and work in progress. The articles include issues such as the "masculinization of the German…

Although children's oral language has been a focus of interest and inquiry through the 20th century, current investigations document research with literature of more recent decades to support investigations, theoretical design, or philosophical approach. The developmental nature of the literature, with marked changes in theory and methods of child…

A study of bilingual development in preschool children had two components: (1) a followup of a previous study in which the English and Spanish language development of children in a high-quality bilingual preschool remained stable over time, and (2) a replication of the study with a different cohort. The original study found that native…

There are clear differences in acquisition and developmental patterns between conversational language and academic language, or BICS (basic interpersonal communicative skills) and CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency). The conceptual distinction between these two levels highlights misconceptions about the nature of language proficiency…

Seven-month-old infants require redundant information such as temporal synchrony to learn arbitrary syllable-object relations. Infants learned the relations between spoken syllables, /a/ and /i/, and two moving objects only when temporal synchrony was present during habituation. Two experiments examined infants' memory for these relations. In…

Based upon the view that parents, home visitors, and teachers in early childhood settings need tools for empowering young children to develop language, this paper examines what adults need to know to guide young children's language development and presents 20 suggestions for enhancing language growth. The paper maintains that adults need to know…

Reviews research using sentence length as a factor in predicting readability and discusses the possibility of sentence complexity as a more accurate variable. (TO)

Stresses that a teacher needs to listen to children more, that a child must learn school language and how to ask questions to which the teacher then responds. A discussion of child language and linguistic theory is included. (TO)

Discusses the belief that meaning is primary to a child learning language and concludes that teachers should develop language programs in which the use of language would be essential rather than incidental. (RL)