Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we neuroimaged deaf adults as they performed two linguistic tasks with sentences in American Sign Language, grammatical judgment and phonemic-hand judgment. Participants' age-onset of sign language acquisition ranged from birth to 14 years; length of sign language experience was substantial and…

Purpose: The present study investigated the effects of selected measures of language experience (parent-reported estimates of frequency of output and language use) and language ability (parent-reported language proficiency and mean length of utterance in words) on the segmental accuracy of Spanish- and English-speaking bilingual children. Method:…

The current dissertation investigated segmental and prosodic aspects of first- (L1) and second-language (L2) speech production. Forty Korean-speaking adults and children varying in L2 experience (6 months-inexperienced vs. 6 years-experienced) as well as twenty age-matched native English speaking adults and children participated. Experienced…

Published research shows that English speakers gain literacy skills up to the 7-year level more effectively when taught using a language experience approach rather than a word reading approach (reading common words plus phonic reading). It is suggested that this is because of the almost unique nature of English phonology, that is the strengthening…

This study investigates associative learning explanations of the limited attainment of adult compared to child language acquisition in terms of learned attention to cues. It replicates and extends Ellis and Sagarra (2010) in demonstrating short- and long-term learned attention in the acquisition of temporal reference in Latin. In Experiment 1,…

Indirect effects of preschool classroom indexes of teacher talk were tested on fourth-grade outcomes for 57 students from low-income families in a longitudinal study of classroom and home influences on reading. Detailed observations and audiotaped teacher and child language data were coded to measure content and quantity of verbal interactions in…

How infants learn new words is a fundamental puzzle in language acquisition. To guide their word learning, infants exploit systematic word-learning heuristics that allow them to link new words to likely referents. By 17 months, infants show a tendency to associate a novel noun with a novel object rather than a familiar one, a heuristic known as…

We evaluated language development in deaf Italian preschoolers with hearing parents, taking into account the duration of formal language experience (i.e., the time elapsed since wearing a hearing aid and beginning language education) and different methods of language education. Twenty deaf children were matched with 20 hearing children for age and…

Research using an intensive single-session training to increase use of Socratic (open-ended) questions and to lengthen turn-taking talk with low-income preschoolers showed that immediate posttraining gains were not sustained in classrooms 3 months later. Suggestions are given for trainers and for teachers that can boost teacher ability to…

Despite abundant evidence of malleability in speech production, previous studies of the effects of late second-language learning on first-language production have been limited to advanced learners. This dissertation examines these effects in novice learners, finding that experience in a second language rapidly, and possibly inexorably, affects…

During the summer of 2005, a longtime Japanese teacher at a K-8 school in southwestern Pennsylvania unexpectedly resigned. The school, unable to recruit a new teacher for the 2005-2006 school year, chose to suspend the teaching of Japanese and to establish a committee to examine the foreign language program within the overall school curriculum. In…

Among risk factors associated with reading difficulties, poverty and underdeveloped oral language skills can be particularly detrimental to reading success. The City Early Reading First (CERF) project implemented a comprehensive curriculum, professional development, intensive mentoring, and home supports to enhance children's language, literacy,…

Relates language acquisition theories regarding comprehension, early speech, and speech emergence within the Natural Approach, which returns language learning to the living context and maintains the isolated fragments of language as a whole, to those theories expressed in a comparison between the experience of an apprentice singer of tales to that…

Reviews 17 children's literature trade books which encourage the reader to revel in language via word play, riddles, word study, rhymes, charts, songs, and poetry. (SR)

To trace how age and language experience shape the discrimination of native and non-native phonetic contrasts, we compared 4-year-olds learning either English or French or both and simultaneous bilingual adults on their ability to discriminate the English /d-[delta]/ contrast. Findings show that the ability to discriminate the native English…