Addresses the specific language expectations of early elementary school, describes common language problems, and recommends strategies for intervention in early childhood classrooms. Includes examples of real classroom conversations between teacher and students. Presents two tables summarizing expressive and receptive language intervention…

Explores spontaneous speech samples from children during the period from one word to multiword utterances in interaction with their French-speaking mothers in order to study the appearance and development of functional changes in their use of language. A longitudinal study of four children revealed the beginnings of references to the past and the…

Using a narrative procedure, this study replicated Zaitchik's (1991) result that children are more likely to acknowledge another's belief when they are told about reality than when they see reality for themselves. The article argues that these children were acknowledging alternative rather than false belief. (20 references) (Author/CK)

Examined relationship between mother-child conversational interactions when children were 30, 36, and 42 months old and children's recall of these activities 1 day and 3 weeks later. Found that at all ages, features of activities jointly handled and jointly discussed were remembered better than features jointly handled but discussed by mother only…

Analyzed the development of two morphological structures in Hebrew, one inflectional and the other derivational, and examined the mutual contribution of morphological knowledge and learning the written code. In a longitudinal design, 40 children were tested twice on two oral tasks--inflecting nouns for possession and deriving denominal…

Compares preschool/kindergarten education in Malaysia and the United Kingdom, including curriculum and teacher training. Describes the Malaysian national preschool curriculum guidelines as using play as a vehicle for learning while incorporating a more formal reading and writing readiness program. Describes experiences in a teaching course for…

This study examined how 4 specific measures of home literacy practices (i.e., shared book reading frequency, maternal book reading strategies, child's enjoyment of reading, and maternal sensitivity) and a global measure of the quality and responsiveness of the home environment during the preschool years predicted children's language and emergent…

Although child maltreatment has often been described as leading to language deficits, the few well-controlled investigations of language acquisition in maltreated children have focused on language content rather than form, or have used qualitative rather than quantitative measures. This study examines syntactic complexity in 19 maltreated and 14…

The present study discusses and describes codeswitches produced by two trilingual children acquiring English, Spanish and Hebrew simultaneously from birth. Data were collected regularly over a period of 20 months (from age 2;6 to 4;2 for M and from age 5;5 to 7;1 for E), in naturalistic tape-recorded sessions. Codeswitches drawn from…

Variations in the amount and nature of early language to which children are exposed have been linked to their subsequent ability (e.g. Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk, Seltzer & Lyons, 1991; Hart & Risley, 1995). In three computational simulations, we explore how differences in linguistic experience can explain differences in word learning ability due…

This paper reports the results of an experiment with 21 Italian children (age 2;8-5;11) and 29 U.S. children (age 2;7-5;9) who were tested on their knowledge of verb raising to C in main WH-questions, an obligatory movement process in adult Italian and English. Along the lines of recent movement and feature checking theories, it is proposed that,…

Based on research in infant sign language, this book teaches parents methods of communicating with their infants through the use of simple bodily movements that signify objects, events, and needs. Noting that communication between parent and child can flourish between 9 months and 30 months, when a baby's desire to communicate outstrips the…

The relationship between language, thought, and concept formation has been a central issue in many studies and theoretical discussions in various domains--philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and linguistics. The relation between language and concept development can be framed as two opposing questions: (1) Does the child learn concepts first and…

A 3-years-and-11-months-old Japanese girl showed delayed language development and emotional disturbance and was believed to suffer from maternal deprivation. A treatment program was developed consisting of three kinds of therapy: (1) nondirective play therapy; (2) language training; and (3) counseling for the mother. The language training involved…

The study of language acquisition requires that the analyst identify the learner's target and have available a grammatical description of the target. In the case of the Caribbean Creole environment, special caution is required in identifying the learner's target because substantial variation is intrinsic to the input and ambient language. Existing…