The article examines clinical issues that must be considered in planning preschool language intervention aimed at integrating pragmatic theory into the treatment plan. The clinician's role in the process is examined, and solutions to problems in meeting individual needs within a group and being accountable are offered. (CL)

The study involving 35 normal preschoolers suggested that normal preschoolers appear to create faster mappings (rapid creating of lexical representations for unfamiliar words) containing a great deal of linguistic and nonlinguistic information on the basis of even brief, casual encounters with new words. (Author/CL)

A three-dimensional approach to language acquisition was instituted as part of an auditory-verbal habilitation program for four hearing-impaired preschoolers. Results indicate that the Ss were developing verbal language skills paralleling normally developing children with hearing but at a later age. (Author)

The study investigated the stability of five type-token ratios (TTRs) in 50-utterance oral language samples of 83 children three, four, and five years of age. Based on the results of this study, TTR measures of the language of young children should not be compared for samples that differ in number of words. (Author/CL)

The study examined relationships between symbolic play and language in 10 developmentally delayed preschool children. As predicted, individual subject data revealed instances of correspondence and noncorrespondence between developmental levels of symbolic play and communication forms. Several patterns of play-language relationships are discussed…

The results suggested that although blind children are generally competent in language, they utilize a number of linguistic strategies that differentiate them from sighted language users. (Author)

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,…

Publicly funded prekindergartens are programs that most states use to promote school readiness, especially of 4-year-old children at risk for academic problems due to poverty. Despite large public expenditures, these programs have not been widely evaluated. We examined 240 randomly selected pre-kindergarten programs in six states with mature…

Three experiments investigated whether linguistic and/or attentional constraints might account for preschoolers' difficulties when learning color terms. Task structure and demands were equated across experiments, and both speed and degree of learning were compared. In Experiment 1, 3-year-olds who were matched on vocabulary score were taught new…

The study examined the effects of sensory integration therapy (SIT) on the language development of 15 developmentally delayed preschoolers and the effects of SIT in combination with language therapy. Results of pre- and post-tests using the Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development, and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised, and the Mean…

RECENT RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT WAS REVIEWED, AND THE DIFFICULTIES OF TRANSFORMING DEVELOPMENTAL RESEARCH INTO PRESCRIPTIONS FOR EDUCATION WERE DISCUSSED. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PRESCHOOL TEACHING WERE MADE UNDER THE FOLLOWING HEADINGS--(1) THE ACQUISITION OF GRAMMAR, STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE, (2) THE ACQUISITION OF…

Analysis of language samples collected from 110 linguistically normal one- to four-year-olds indicated a direct relationship between chronological age, mean length of utterance, and percent of complex sentences. Analysis of the complex sentences in each sample indicated subcategories for each type of complexity with their own order of acquisition.…

Four autistic or autisticlike preschoolers participated in a study which indicated the effectiveness of sequential implementation of imbedded instruction rather than tutoring on enhancing the acquisition of yes/no responses. (CL)

The language age equivalent scores on the Verbal Language Development Scale calculated from mother, father, and teacher reports on 15 preschool children were compared and found to be highly correlated. (Author)

Results indicated that the diagnostic questioning strategy using Full Model to Open Questioning was more efficacious for modifying the structure and content of young learners' expressive language repertoires than the reverse, which begins with an open ended question, "tell me about this," and proceeds through more restricted alternatives.…