This study investigated the effect of the digital Down Syndrome LanguagePlus (DSL+) intervention on vocabulary outcomes through a school-delivered randomized controlled trial. A national sample of first graders with Down syndrome from 91 schools was allocated to an intervention group (n = 50), which received daily intervention for 15 weeks, or a…

This study examined the effectiveness of the "Thrive by Three" intervention for 1- to 3-year-old's language development. Data from 78 childcare centres, 187 toddler classrooms, and 1561 children (91.4% native Norwegian) were included. Results revealed that children in the intervention group had slightly steeper language development than…

Oral language skills are essential for developing good interpersonal relationships, for emotional and behavioral function as well as for academic and vocational success. Language problems can have serious, adverse consequences, and individuals coming into conflict with the law often have a history of undiagnosed language problems and poor academic…

While it is established that parental "wh"-questions, as a high-quality language input, are associated with child language outcome, less is known about the role of children's "wh"-questions in their language development. This study examines whether children's "wh"-questions during a dinnertime conversation are…

In this randomized trial study, the authors examined the efficacy of a practitioner partnership language intervention addressing oral language learning (expressive and receptive) in young language-minority learners from multiple-language groups in Norway. Resource teachers in 16 elementary schools implemented the intervention in the first and…

The aims of this study were to gain insight into the quality of inclusion in mainstream classrooms involving students with Down syndrome and to reveal underlying predictors. A total of 39 8-year-olds with Down syndrome and their teachers participated. Via a survey, the teachers were asked to rate key indicators of inclusion. Their average rating…

A body of studies, which are mostly based on parental reports, have documented gender differences in early language proficiency, and girls tend to outperform boys in both language production and language comprehension. In this study, staff in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care institutions observed language comprehension, word…

Second-language learners display poorer general language skills in the language used at school than their monolingual peers, which is a concern because general language skills (vocabulary, grammar, language expression, and comprehension) provide the foundation for later academic success. In a randomized controlled trial, we examined the efficacy…

This study examined the extent to which receptive and productive vocabulary between ages 12 and 18 months predicted language skills at age 24 months in children born with family risk for dyslexia (FR) and a control group born without that risk. The aim was to identify possible markers of early language delay. The authors monitored vocabulary…

This article presents results from a large population-based study of early communicative development in Norwegian children using an adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories, comprising 6574 children between 8 and 36 months. Data were collected via the Internet. In accordance with similar studies from other languages,…

Narratives require the integration of many different linguistic skills and can be used as an ecologically valid measure of child language development. This study investigated the narrative skills of 18 six- to seven-year-old prelingually deaf children who received simultaneous bilateral cochlear implants (CI) between 5 and 18 months of age. No…

Genetic and environmental relations between vocabulary and reading skills were explored longitudinally from preschool through Grades 2 and 4. At preschool there were strong shared-environment and weak genetic influences on both vocabulary and print knowledge but substantial differences in their source. Separation of etiology for vocabulary and…