Practice on cognitive tasks, such as word recognition tasks, will usually lead to faster and more stable responding in a second language. An analysis is presented of the relationship between observed reductions in performance latency and latency variability with respect to whether processing has become faster or whether a qualitative change, such…

A study investigated children's understanding of the formal and functional aspects of written Chinese in an orthographic acceptability judgment task and a creative spelling task. Subjects were 60 Hong Kong children ages 4 to 9. Results suggest that learning to read and write in Chinese is not accomplished by rote learning of characters but through…

Investigation of fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-graders' knowledge of derivational morphology and the relationship between that knowledge and their ability to spell derived words, found that, while there was a strong developmental trend in both the mastery of derivational morphology and the spelling of derived words, spelling performances lagged…

Examined oset and acquisition of language comprehension and production in a language delayed child through analysis of a daily diary. In addition to confirming that the gap between comprehension and production was greater than that found in normal children, data from these observations can also be used to add to a general understanding of the…

Reanalyzes Gierut's study that presents a case in which a phonological intervention program is used to effect a phonemic split in a child with a highly restricted phonological system. Three alternatives to Gierut's analysis are presented and discussed. (21 references) (Author/OD)

Analysis of videotapes of 19 parent-child dyads during bookreading when children were 2.5 years old, and subsequent analysis of the children's paradigmatic thought organization at 3.5 years, revealed a significant correlation between superordinate level labels in parents' talk and 3 measures of children's paradigmatic organization. (45 references)…

Children using Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) picture boards often produce sequences of symbols that do not reflect the grammatical structure of the language spoken in their environment. Graphic symbols or pictures may be interpreted as global representations of meaning rather than as individual components to be sequenced into…

Investigates associations of form and meaning in the developing tense and aspect systems of adult learners of English as a Second Language. Learners at six levels of proficiency were studied using a cloze passage and compositions on the same topic. Interlanguage tense and aspect systems showed high formal accuracy but lower appropriate use. (43…

Research in the area of language skill attrition encompasses such areas as first-language loss, second-language loss, dying languages, and effects of age or disease on language loss. Research has so far focused on maintenance of language skills and interventions to stop language skill attrition. (CB)

Two linguistically deficient children of deaf parents had been cared for almost exclusively by their mother, who did not speak or sign to them. Intervention led to erasure of idiosynchratic speech pattern in the older child and in increasing both children's expressive ability. Implications for language-learning are discussed. (PJM)

Explores role of discourse functions in children's use of "because" ("perche" in Italian). Disputes of 172 preschoolers were analyzed in terms of interactive move, argumentative strategies, and communicative acts. Results showed causal connective tends to co-occur with justification acts and may work as device introducing new information and…

Reports on a longitudinal study of developing communication in two profoundly deaf preschool boys growing up in oral deaf families who use oral English as their primary language. Results provide a window on the natural ontogenesis of a compensatory gestural system. (Contains 44 references.) (JL)

Investigated a model of metalinguistic awareness, which consists of two components (the control of linguistic processing and the analysis of linguistic knowledge), in children between the ages of five and seven years. Each of the two components was assessed by four metalinguistic tasks. (Contains 35 references.) (JL)

Phonetic skills and vocabulary size were investigated in 37 toddlers identified with specific expressive language impairment and 20 comparison toddlers. Results indicate significant differences in numbers of consonant types and tokens, although the most frequently present consonants were consistent across groups. No predictive relationship emerged…

Compares and analyzes the types and distributions of cohesive devices used in narrative texts by Dutch-speaking children aged 8-9 and 10-11. Findings indicate a developmental trend in the construction of more cohesive and compact narrative texts. (SED)