The practice of making string figures, often called cat's cradle, can be found all over the world and is particularly widespread in Melanesia. It has been studied by anthropologists, linguists and mathematicians. For the latter, the ordered series of moves and the resultant string figures represent cognitive processes that form part of a practice…

Research Findings: The home literacy environment and particularly shared reading are central determinants of children's emergent literacy skills and predictors of their later reading development. Although the importance of frequent shared reading is well established, there is little knowledge about the age at which reading to children starts…

Background: Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is associated with growth deficits and neurodevelopmental impairment including foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Difficulties with oral and written communication skills are common among children with PAE; however, less is known about how communication skills of adolescents who have PAE compare…

Background & aims: Difficulties understanding spoken language are associated with several social and academic risks in school-age children and adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD). Still, interventions for this group have received little attention, and there are no reviews focusing on oral language comprehension interventions…

Being rejected by peers has devastating consequences for a child's future social-cognitive development. It is therefore important to investigate factors that contribute to childhood peer rejection. In doing so, the present review specifically focused on sociometric status, a concept that refers to a child's position within the peer group (e.g.,…

Background: The ability to learn new words is critical in the development of oral and written language, and significantly impacts engagement in social, academic and vocational situations. Many studies have evaluated the word-learning process in people with developmental language disorder (DLD). However, methodologies for assessment are…

Elicited Imitation Tests (EITs) are commonly used in second language acquisition (SLA)/bilingualism research contexts to assess the general oral proficiency of study participants. While previous studies have provided valuable EIT construct-related validity evidence, some key gaps remain. This study uses an integrative data analysis to further…

This article presents a review of the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language--Second Edition (CASL-2), in which reliability, utility, and validity are analyzed and discussed. Some limited recommendations for practice are made based on a review of the information provided by the publisher for clinicians.

Ascertaining the value of a study abroad experience on facilitating language development has long been a goal of Second Language Acquisition scholars. There is currently a plethora of studies regarding the topic, yet, despite this, the evidence remains inconclusive and contradictory. This systematic review evaluates the impact of study abroad…

Sensorimotor integration is an unconscious process of the brain incorporating multiple senses and movement. This review aimed to synthesize the literature on the role of visual-motor integration in language learning, whether spoken or signed, for deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) children. Nineteen peer-reviewed studies published between 1980 and…

We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate reading-writing relations. Beyond the overall relation, we systematically investigated moderation of the relation as a function of linguistic grain size (word reading and spelling versus reading comprehension and written composition), measurement of reading comprehension (e.g., multiple choice,…

Background: It is widely acknowledged that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) predominantly have difficulties in the areas of grammar and vocabulary, with preserved pragmatic skills. Consequently, few studies focus on the pragmatic skills of children with DLD, and there is a distinct lack of studies examining the effectiveness of…

Children's experiences in preschool and kindergarten influence their future literacy learning. Although emergent literacy has traditionally been supported by play-based experiences, there has been a decline in play opportunities in recent years. Media publications citing the science of reading have called for more focus on systematic, direct…

Target language speaking competence is a skill both students and world language teachers desire to develop, yet it is often one of the weakest areas observed in secondary classrooms (Thompson & Mutton, 2022). To help improve student willingness to speak, educators should understand what intrinsically and extrinsically motivates learners. The…

Judgment tasks (JTs, often called acceptability or grammaticality judgment tasks) are found extensively throughout the history of second language (L2) research. Data from such instruments have been used to investigate a range of hypotheses and phenomena, from generativist theories to instructional effectiveness. Though popular and convenient, JTs…