This study analyzed a conversational speech sample from 10 preschool children stuttering for a year or less and age- and sex-matched nonstuttering children. Analysis indicated no significant between-group differences for either the duration of acoustically measured sound/syllable repetitions and sound prolongations or the number of repeated units…

A plural elicitation task and a nominal compounding task were administered to 18 children (age 5-6 years) with specific language impairment (SLI) and 2 control groups. SLI children's performance was affected by input frequency; three explanations within a model of linguistic normalcy are proposed to account for this frequency effect. (Author/DB)

Research has shown a relationship between mothers' beliefs about literacy, their educational and socioeconomic backgrounds, and their children's emergent literacy awareness. Many Australian Indigenous children experience educational disadvantage, as do children whose parents are manual workers. One recommendation that is frequently made is for…

There is increased interest by parents in communicating with their children about political violence. However, limited attention in the scholarly literature has focused on parent-child communication about war and terrorism. In response, the purpose of this study is to assess, within their respective ecological contexts, American and Northern Irish…

The study examined the sensitivity of young children (3-7 years old) and adults to the acoustic variations resulting from a speaker's coarticulation (or coproduction) of phonetic segments. Results indicated perceptual sensitivity to certain coarticulatory effects present as early as three years of age. (Author/DB)

The effectiveness of oral-motor treatment and behavior modification to reduce habitual tongue protrusion was compared with five children with Down's Syndrome aged between 21 and 31 months. Both forms of treatment appeared to be effective but there was insufficient data to determine the more effective and efficient method. (Author/DB)

Nine autistic children (ages 7-14) were treated with fenfluramine hydrochloride or inactive placebo in a double-blind crossover trial. Results, while providing minimal support for the effectiveness of fenfluramine, also suggested the possibility that fenfluramine blood levels might be related to treatment response. (Author/DB)

Parental responses to grammatically correct and incorrect child utterances were observed in free-play interactions of two groups, each containing 10 parents and their language learning children. Group 1: 21-26 months old, with MLU's between 2 and 2.5 morphemes. Group 2: 34-40 months old, with MLU's between 3 and 3.5 morphemes. (Author/BN)

Results indicate that (1) comprehension of direct and indirect directives improves between the ages of three and six; (2) comprehension of direct directives appears to occur earlier and with greater ease than comprehension of indirect directives; and (3) context, or social situation, plays an important role in the comprehension of direct and…

Examines the relations of levels of task engagement to investigation and visual attention in data from 30-month-old children. Finds significant correlations between task and other mastery behavior. Postulates task engagement as valid assessment of mastery behavior. Suggests the motivation for young children's play is acquisition and mastery of…

A total of 60 adults and 60 first graders were presented with brief stories and asked to supply the verbal statement (or directive) that would be used by the story character. Results confirmed expectations regarding situational use of directives for neutral-affect story characters. (Author/KS)

Explores in three experiments development of three linguistic aspects of "more" in children's speech. Experiment 1 examined nature of early semantic content of "more;" Experiment 2, the child's differentiation of mass "more" from count "more"; and Experiment 3, the child's use of "more" as a…

Reports outcomes of three experiments in which children were taught a sentence form that they did not as yet understand. Investigates whether (1) acquisition of word order relations for sentence form would be affected by pragmatic ordering principles and (2) whether referent animacy would be included in children's rules for word order. (Author/BE)

The gesture systems developed by 10 deaf children, each incapable of acquiring a conventional spoken language naturally and not exposed to a conventional manual language by their hearing parents, were compared and contrasted to both the speech and the gesture systems developed by three hearing children learning English. (Author/BE)

The study found that 8 language-impaired 3-year-old children were less likely than 10 normally developing children to apply unusual sound changes to words with the potential for homonymy, suggesting they are limited in their ability to capitalize on the phonetic regularities of language. (Author/DB)