Comprehension of sentences with a center-embedded, object-gapped relative clause (ORC) is challenging for children as well as adults. Mismatching lexical and grammatical features of subject noun phrases (NPs) across the main clause and relative clause has been shown to facilitate comprehension. Adani et al. concluded that children's comprehension…

Purpose: Speech motor skill is refined over the course of practice, which is commonly reflected by increased accuracy and consistency. This research examined the relationship between auditory-perceptual ratings of word accuracy and measures of speech motor timing and variability at pre- and posttreatment in children with childhood apraxia of…

Minimal expressions are at the heart of interaction: Interjections like "Huh?" and "Mhm" keep conversations flowing by establishing and reinforcing intersubjectivity among interlocutors. Crosslinguistic research has identified that similar interactional pressures can yield structurally similar words (e.g., to initiate repair…

In this article we explore the work of two after-school programs in Toronto, Ontario. Our Youth Success (OYS) is a community-based mentoring program dedicated to lowering the push-out rates of students of Spanish and/or Portuguese-speaking descent. In the Youth Speak Program (YSP), community activists use spoken word poetry and rapping as a…

Individuals with Asperger Syndrome (AS) often face difficulties in social communication and language skills, encompassing comprehension and production in both their first and second languages. English as a second language has been one of the most common communication tools and a school subject for decades in Asia; therefore, mastering English…

Researchers widely assert that requiring eye contact from students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) before instruction is highly important to the outcome of teaching (Greer and Ross in Verbal behavior analysis, Pearson Education, New York, 2008; Lovaas in J Consult Clin Psychol 55(1):3-9, 1977. https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2102/10.1037/0022-006x.55.1.3).…

The role of language in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), more specifically, its function in social communication and strong predictive power on future outcomes, warrants language assessments that have good psychometric properties that capture the heterogeneity of language ability found among diagnosed individuals. Given the rapid growth in…

Young children from low-SES backgrounds are at higher risk for delayed language development, likely due to differences in their home language environment and decreased opportunities for back and forth communicative exchange. Intervention strategies that encourage reciprocal caregiver-child interactions may effectively promote young children's…

There are over 135,000 deaf/hard of hearing students enrolled in postsecondary institutions in the U.S. However, deaf students who use sign language may not be aware of their sign language skills, resulting in accommodations that do not provide full access to postsecondary course content and reduced degree completion rates compared to their…

Purpose: This study compares the home language environments of children with (a suspicion of) developmental language disorder (DLD) with that of children with typical development (TD). It does so by adopting new technology that automatically provides metrics about children's language environment (Language ENvironment Analysis [LENA]). In addition,…

A 7-year longitudinal study was conducted as part of the French national cohort ELFE (N = 1095). The aim was to identify how and why early language skills at 2 years might predict later literacy skills assessed successively at 5, 7, and 9 years (LitSk5y; 7y; 9y). Using one and the same model, we also examined the relations between literacy skills…

Research Findings: Early elementary school is a crucial time for the development of executive functions, but less is known about the impact of parent-child narratives on executive function development in children of this age group. This study aims to investigate the influence of parental scaffolding styles in parent-child co-constructed narratives…

This study aimed to adapt and validate the Word Complexity Measure (WCM) for Persian-speaking toddlers. The WCM is a tool for assessing phonological complexity, originally proposed by Stoel-Gammon. The study was conducted in two phases: (1) adapting the WCM parameters to the Persian language and (2) conducting a validation study with 60…

The oral language proficiency of students in early education is crucial as teachers draw on this as a resource when developing literacy. There is a need to better understand what this oral language resource consists of at school entry, particularly the diversity amongst children so as to address inequalities. This article reports a study on a key…

During the second year of life, children acquire words and expand their receptive and expressive vocabularies at a rapid pace. At this age, toddlers' phonological abilities are also developing rapidly. The current study investigated the effect of phonological complexity of words on the order in which they are acquired, receptively and…