Preventative parent-coaching programs can improve early interaction quality, language skills, and academic outcomes for children experiencing economic adversity. Using a community-based participatory research framework, we piloted Duet, a preventative, parent-implemented, early language intervention. We assigned home visitors to provide Duet or…

The autism spectrum disorder phenotype varies by social and communication ability and co-occurring developmental, behavioral, and medical conditions. Etiology is also diverse, with myriad potential genetic origins and environmental risk factors. Examining the influence of parental broader autism phenotype--a set of sub-clinical characteristics of…

Both early childhood maternal language input and the quality of classroom instruction in elementary school have been shown to be important environmental supports in predicting children's literacy skill development. However, no studies have simultaneously examined these two environmental supports in relation to children's early language skills and…

When learning verb meanings, learners capitalize on universal linguistic correspondences between syntactic and semantic structure. For instance, upon hearing the transitive sentence "the boy is glorping the girl," 2-year-olds prefer a two-participant event (e.g., a boy making a girl spin) over two simultaneous one-participant events (a…

In 1990, the Settlement Music School Kaleidoscope Preschool Arts Enrichment Program, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, created a preschool program to teach music and other creative arts to three- to five-year-olds. This article describes how the program works: how music teaches language and math, how dance teaches action words and spatial concepts,…

Purpose: The sharp increase in the number of international adoptions in the United States has prompted a heightened interest in the language development of internationally adopted children. Although recent studies have investigated the early language development of adoptees, little is known about the school-age language and literacy skills of…

Describes a parent education program in a rural Pennsylvania school district that uses a learning packet that contains (1) information about child development; (2) ideas for fostering child development, especially in language; and (3) suggestions for parenting. (BB)