In a study of the use of grammatical morphemes by 10 hearing-impaired children (5-15 years old) and 10 normal-hearing children matched on the basis of mean length of utterance, results revealed no significant differences in correct grammatical morphemes used and identical order of acquisition for both groups. (Author/CL)

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.…

This study examined the relationship between event representation and linguistic expression in narratives of 31 children and adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) and controls matched for either mental age, syntax comprehension, or expressive language. Use of linguistic devices and cohesion were poorer in DS subjects than MA- matched controls with…

This study investigated whether shared parent-infant book reading at 4 and 8 months would be associated with subsequent language abilities at 12 and 16 months. Parents of 87 typically developing middle-class infants reported on the presence or absence of shared reading in the home; infant language abilities were measured through laboratory…

Proximal environmental variables illustrate aspects of the environment that are experienced directly and specifically by the child. The current study examined the associations between three proximal environmental variables: (1) quality of the home environment, (2) regularity of family routines and (3) frequency of parenting daily hassles and…

Researchers and educators have developed an interest in language development. Their studies focused on the cultural context in which language is learned and developed and its relationship to cognitive development. This article reviews the researchers' definitions on oracy and its social facets of language learning. Specifically, it reviews studies…

The investigation longitudinally examined the phonetic skills of Cypriot-Greek children with late onset of expressive vocabulary. The rate of phonological development within short time increments and the identification of possible speech constraints motivating slow development of expressive language were examined. Participants were seven…

A simultaneous treatments design was used to compare effects of modeling and corrected practice on generative language acquisition of six preschoolers. New syntactic forms used to describe agent-action-object stimuli were taught concurrently. All six children learned both new syntactic forms. Corrected practice produced a faster rate of learning.…

The acquisition of conversational response skills by young retarded and nonretarded children matched for chronological age and expressive linguistic ability was compared. Retarded Ss showed delayed response performance in comparison with controls matched for CA. When matched for language level, however, retarded children demonstrated significantly…

Normal-hearing elementary school-age children (N=180) performed rote sequencing language tasks, named colors, and told their birthday. For the six automatic and semiautomatic expressive language tasks, maturational trends were noted for all observations. Central tendency values and standard deviations by grades for the six tasks are reported.…

The efficacy of employing linguistic elements (verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.) arranged in systematic combination matrices on the development of expressive verb-noun phrase usage was demonstrated when two of three moderately to severely handicapped six- and seven-year-old students showed gains in trained and novel responses. (CL)

In a study of 50 normal children and 65 children with expressive language disorder (ELD), results showed no differences in the frequency, duration, or timing of episodes of otitis media. For children with ELD, there was a relationship between otitis media and expressive language improvement. (BC)

Cognitive and language skills of 39 siblings of children with autism (SIBS-A) and 39 siblings of typically developing children (SIBS-TD) at ages 4, 14, 24, 36, and 54 months were compared. Twelve of the 39 SIBS-A revealed a delay in cognition and/or language (including one child diagnosed with autism) compared to only two SIBS-TD. Developmental…

Examines children's strategies in language production. Focuses on how children in early stages of language acquisition talk about objects, spatial relations, and actions, and the extent to which they rely on general purpose terms in all three domains. (JMB)

Preschool children were paired in 12 speaker-listener dyads in which the speaker described common familiar items, and the listener attempted to guess their identity. Postfeedback, the speakers used longer, more informative descriptions for items originally failed and shorter, less informative descriptions for items successfully guessed on the…