Proper segmentation of auditory streams is essential for understanding music. Many cues, including meter, melodic contour, and harmony, influence adults' perception of musical phrase boundaries. To date, no studies have examined young children's musical grouping in a production task. We used a musical self-pacing method to investigate (1) whether…

Identifying change at the individual level is an important goal for researchers, educators, and clinicians. We present a set of statistical procedures for identifying individuals who depart from a normative change. Using Latent Change Scores models (LCS), we illustrate how the Individual Likelihood computed from a statistical model for change…

This study investigates the knowledge of binding in 21 English-speaking children with SLI, aged 6;08-16;05, compared to 21 children with WS, language- and age-matched, and 21 language-matched control children, aged 4-7;10. Our results demonstrate no difficulties in the interpretation of reflexive or personal pronouns in SLI, revealing an intact…

This twin study examined the genetic and environmental etiology of vocabulary, syntax, and their association in first graders. French-speaking same-sex twins (n = 555) completed two vocabulary tests, and two scores of syntax were calculated from their spontaneous speech at 7 years of age. Multivariate latent factor genetic analyses showed that…

We investigated "scalar implicature" in adolescents and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to test whether theory of mind deficits associated with autism affect pragmatic inferences in language. We tested scalar implicature computation in adolescents with ASD (12-18 years) and asked whether they reason about mental states when…

Formal thought disorder (FTD) is a disruption in the flow of thought and a common feature in psychotic disorders and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Executive dysfunction has often been associated with FTD, yet for ASD convincing evidence is lacking. This study investigated FTD and three core executive functions in 50 young children and…

Specific language impairment (SLI) is a heterogeneous disorder affecting various aspects of language. While most studies have investigated impairments in the domain of syntax and morphosyntax, little is known about compositional semantics and the process of deriving pragmatic meanings in SLI. We selected a group of sixteen monolingual…

Although reading outcomes for children with hearing loss are improving, too many of these children continue to display persistent reading difficulties. Because of these difficulties, there is an ongoing need to understand the nature of the relationships among decoding abilities, language skills, and reading achievement in this population more…

"Retraction Notice--Joseph Hilgard, postdoctoral fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, contacted the journal with questions regarding the pattern of results and conducted reanalyses of the data that called into question the credibility of the data. Unfortunately, the data collection procedures could…

It is unknown whether children with conduct problems (CP) and poor reading (PR) skills exhibit more profound executive function impairments than children with CP only and whether such impairments are explained by coexisting PR. Executive functions were compared in four groups of 7- to 8-year-old children: 26 CP only, 35 PR only, 27 CP-PR, and 31…

Alleviating disadvantage in low-income environments predicts higher cognitive abilities during early childhood. It is less established whether family income continues to predict cognitive growth in later childhood or whether there may even be bidirectional dynamics. Notably, living in poverty may moderate income-cognition dynamics. In this study,…

We systematically assessed the relationships between growth of four components of verbal ability--Information, Similarities, Vocabulary, and Comprehension subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale-Revised--and longitudinal growth from Grades 1 to 9 of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery Passage Comprehension subtest while controlling…

We examined the extent to which children's skilled understanding and production of appropriate language (verbal ability) may relate to their peer functioning. Participants included two independent samples of children with and without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD; Study 1, N = 124; Study 2, N = 137) who were administered a…

Temporal proximity is one of the key factors determining whether events in different modalities are integrated into a unified percept. Sensitivity to audiovisual temporal asynchrony has been studied in adults in great detail. However, how such sensitivity matures during childhood is poorly understood. We examined perception of audiovisual temporal…

This study used the lexicality effects on N400 to investigate orthographic processing in children with developmental dyslexia. Participants performed a Go/No-Go semantic judgment task; three types of stimuli--real characters (RC), pseudocharacters (PC), and noncharacters (NC)--were embedded in No-Go trials. Two types of lexicality effects (RC vs.…