The speech register that adults especially caregivers use when interacting with infants and toddlers, that is, infant-directed speech (IDS) or baby talk, has been reported to facilitate language development throughout the early years. However, the neural mechanisms as well as why IDS results in such a developmental faciliatory effect remain to be…

Purpose: The Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) technology uses automated speech processing (ASP) algorithms to estimate counts such as total adult words and child vocalizations, which helps understand children's early language environment. This ASP has been validated in North American English and other languages in predominantly monolingual…

We examined how noun frequency and the typicality of surrounding linguistic context contribute to children's real-time comprehension. Monolingual English-learning toddlers viewed pairs of pictures while hearing sentences with typical or atypical sentence frames ("Look at the…" vs. "Examine the…"), followed by nouns that were…

Background: In typically developing (TD) children, gesture emerges around 9 months of age, allowing children to communicate prior to speech. Due to the important role gesture plays in the early communication of autistic and TD children, various tasks have been used to assess gesture ability. However, few data exist on whether and how tasks…

In early childhood centres, decontextualised talk is often associated with literacy activities. In this study, however, we investigated toddler-educator conversations across various activities with a focus on those about topics that were not related to the immediate context. We examined the communicative purposes and linguistic features of these…

This article explores the applicability of mean length of utterance (MLU) as a language assessment measure for Georgian child language, as to-date, Georgian, a morphologically rich language with numerous inflectional categories, experiences an extensive lack of instruments for early language assessment. To this end, a set of guidelines for…

What is vision's role in driving early word production? To answer this, we assessed parent-report vocabulary questionnaires administered to congenitally blind children (N = 40, Mean age = 24 months [R: 7-57 months]) and compared the size and contents of their productive vocabulary to those of a large normative sample of sighted children (N =…

This article evaluates the acquisition of directionals in Q'anjob'al, a Western Mayan language of Guatemala. The data come from a longitudinal study of two Q'anjob'al monolingual children of Santa Eulalia, Huehuetenango, Guatemala: Xhuw (1;9-2;5) and Xhim (2;3-3;5). The results show how these children acquire the morphological distribution of…

To address the variability of naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention outcomes, the current study sought to isolate the effects of the instructional strategies of caregiver-mediated naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions. In this comparative efficacy trial, mothers of 111 autistic children (18-48 months) were randomized to…

Early linguistic environment has shown an impact on children's later language development, particularly, child directed speech has been associated with providing children with linguistic input from which to look for regularities and patterns, and boosting children to produce utterances beyond their current competence. This article aims to examine…

The Mayan language Mam uses complex predicates to express events. Complex predicates map multiple semantic elements onto a single word, and consequently have a blend of lexical and phrasal features. The chameleon-like nature of complex predicates provides a window on children's ability to express phrasal combinations at the one-word stage of…

A majority of children's language learning experiences occur in inclusive early child care and education settings. Few evidence-based professional development (PD) programs exist to empower early childhood education providers to use language instruction practices with children in inclusive classrooms. There is little research on providers'…