Purpose: As an initial step in determining whether a spelling error analysis might be useful in measuring children's linguistic knowledge, the relation between the frequency of types of scores from a spelling error analysis and children's performance on measures of phonological and orthographic pattern awareness was examined. Method: The spellings…

Background: The educational context in South Africa does not always support the development of bilingualism to enable the cognitive and social advantages of dual language proficiency. The emphasis on English as the language of instruction overlooks bilingual competence. This study attempts to show that by considering conceptual vocabulary,…

We examined growth trajectories of writing and the relation of children's socio-economic status, and language and/or speech impairment to the growth trajectories. First grade children (N = 304) were assessed on their written composition in the fall, winter, and spring, and their vocabulary and literacy skills in the fall. Children's SES had a…

This study examines vocabulary growth rates in first and second languages for Spanish-speaking and Cantonese-speaking English language learners from kindergarten through second grade. Growth-modeling results show a within-language effect of concepts about print on vocabulary. Language exposure also had an effect on English vocabulary: earlier…

We examined growth trajectories of writing and the relation of children's socioeconomic status and language and/or speech impairment to the growth trajectories. First-grade children (N = 304) were assessed on their written composition in the fall, winter, and spring, and their vocabulary and literacy skills in the fall. Children's SES had a…

The purposes of this study were to determine the effectiveness of a vocabulary intervention for first-grade students at risk for reading and language difficulties and to compare the results of a regression discontinuity design to those of an experimental design. The specific research questions were: (1) Do first-graders who are at risk of reading…

Purpose: The intent of this study was to examine the longitudinal morpho-syntactic progression of children with Speech Sound Disorders (SSD) grouped according to Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) scores. Methods: Thirty-seven children separated into four clusters were assessed in their pre-kindergarten and Grade 1 years. Cluster 1 were children with…

The authors examined (a) the extent to which kindergarten estimates of core language functions predicted teacher ratings of behavior problems in each of the child's first 4 years of elementary school and (b) the ability of core language measures to predict concurrent behavior problems at each of the early elementary school grades studied.…