Books can be a rich source of learning for children and adults alike. In the present study, the contribution of shared reading and parent literacy to a variety of child outcomes was tested. Child outcomes included measures of expressive vocabulary, morphological and syntax comprehension, and narrative ability (story grammar, cohesion, and language…

Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the variability and predictors of expressive vocabulary development in children with autism and very delayed language. Method: This study involved 35 children with autism whose initial chronological ages were between 20 and 71 months and whose initial expressive vocabularies were less…

This study examined the moderating effect of low birth weight on the effectiveness of an early intervention program to improve cognitive, language and behavioral outcomes for children prenatally exposed to cocaine. Participants included 293 primarily minority, low SES children who were enrolled in the intervention during their first year and…

We examined the impact of using an animated software program (Team Up With Timo) on the expressive and receptive language abilities of five children ages 5-9 in a self-contained Learning and Language Disabilities class. We chose to use Team Up With Timo (Animated Speech Corporation) because it allows the teacher to personalize the animation for…

Background: Previous studies of outcome for children with early language delay have focused on measures of early language as predictors of language outcome. This study investigates whether very early processing skills (VEPS) known to underpin language development will be better predictors of specific language and social communication outcomes than…

Most international adoptees (IA) have rapid catch-up of the delays common at arrival. However, it is not known whether development at arrival predicts later abilities or school readiness. Therefore, we comprehensively evaluated language, fine motor, visual reception (VR), executive function (EF), attention (ATT), and sensory skills (SS) in IA…

Maternal education is a strong correlate of children's language, cognitive, and academic development. In most prior research, mothers' education has been treated as a fixed characteristic, yet many mothers, particularly economically and educationally disadvantaged mothers, attend school after the birth of their children. In the present study, we…

In this study, we investigated the expressive language development of 186 18-35 months old Chinese girls adopted into American families. The adoptees were adopted between 3 and 25 months (M=11.0, S.D.=3.1) and had lived in the adoptive families for 3-27 months (M=16.2, S.D.=5.8) at the time of the study. The adoptive mothers provided information…

Background: Narratives have been used by a number of researchers to investigate the language of children with specific language impairment (SLI). While a number of explanations for SLI have been proposed, there is now mounting evidence that children with SLI have limited memory resources. Phonological memory has been the focus of the research on…

The use of four types of psychological state words (physiological, emotional, desire, and cognitive) during mother-child play sessions at ages 3, 4, and 5 years was examined in 30 children diagnosed with delayed expressive language at 24-31 months and 15 age-matched comparison children with typical development. The children's mean length of…

The relationship between symbolic play and other domains, such as degree of autistic symptomatology, nonverbal cognitive ability, receptive language, expressive language, and social development, was investigated. The assessment files of 101 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder were studied. Nonverbal cognitive ability and expressive language…

This study aimed to investigate the relationships between abilities to initiate and respond to joint attention and symptoms of autism that have, and have not, been theoretically linked to joint attention. Participants were 51 boys and five girls with autistic disorder, aged between 2 years and 6 years 5 months. Measures of joint attention…

Reading to children has been advocated as a way to enhance language and literacy skills (A. G. Bus, M. H. van IJzendoorn, & A. D. Pellegrini, 1995). However, little is known about reading with children under age 3 (K. L. Fletcher & E. Reese, 2005), particularly in at-risk samples (A. van Kleeck, 2003). In the current study of 87 primary caregivers…

Measures designed to explore word-finding ability were administered to 60 8- to 11-year-old learning-disabled and normal-learning children. Three stimulus contexts and high- and low-frequency words were used. Certain substitution types and secondary characteristics emerged as specific to learning-disabled children. (Author/SW)

This study explored the language skills of children with cochlear implants (CIs) compared to normal hearing (NH) peers. Standardized speech and language measures, including speech articulation, receptive and expressive vocabulary, syntax and morphology, and metalinguistics, were administered to 39 congenitally deaf children, ages 5 to 14, and a…