This study examined the relationship between prelinquistic vocalization and expressive vocabulary one year later in 58 toddlers (ages 17- to 34-months old). Rate of vocalizations, rate of vocalizations with consonants, and rate of vocalizations used interactively were all positively related to later expressive vocabulary. (Author/DB)

Vocabulary growth from age 2 to 3 years was studied in 28 late talkers, using expressive vocabulary inventories reported bimonthly on the Language Development Survey (LDS). (Author/VWL)

A study involving 19 children with hearing impairments found that those who developed intelligible speech by 36 months had at 16-23 months a high frequency of vocal utterances, a high proportion of vocal utterances that included intelligible true words, a large consonant inventory, and a high percentage of intonational utterances. (Contains…

Three children with developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) identified syllables in words, judged intrasyllabic sound positions, and constructed syllable shapes within monosyllabic frames. Results suggest that DAS children demonstrate an apparent breakdown in the ability to perceive "syllableness" and to access and compare syllable…

In this study, six percent of a 2-year-old child's spontaneous utterances in six 3-hour samples were identified as one of three expressive metalinguistic utterance types: interrogatives, hypothesis tests, and evocative utterances. Evocative utterances were used most frequently. The subject used the strategies to seek nouns 78 percent of the time.…

A 9-year-old autistic boy with language comprehension skills but minimal meaningful expressive language was exposed to a language training program. The program began with imitation of sounds and progressed to discrimination training, responding to his name, and partial verbalization. Positive reinforcement (including food and a revolving light)…

Ten Down's Syndrome children (all 3-4 years old) and four nonhandicapped children and their mothers participated in a study of children's ability to respond to questions. Interactions of each of the 14 mother-child dyads were recorded on videotape and mother-child vocalizations transcribed. The number of appropriate, inappropriate, and…

The purpose of the study was to assess the reliability and the validity of the Ski Hi Language Development Scale which was designed to determine the receptive and the expressive language levels of hearing impaired children from birth to age 5. The reliability of the instrument was estimated through: (1) internal consistency, (2) inter-rater…

Performance of 15 language-impaired children (average age eight years) on a referential communication task requiring verbal encoding of novel referents was compared to performance of normally developing age-mates and language-mates. Subjects used known referent, graphic, and mixed strategies about equally with language-impaired children less…

Results of two experiments involving four severely handicapped preschoolers suggested that Ss could be taught rudimentary communication skills prior to the attainment of J. Piaget's sensorimotor stage 5. It was further suggested that establishment of initial labeling in an elicited training format will not necessarily generalize to either…

A communication program for autistic children (three to six years old) which increased communication skills in the context of establishing reciprocal communication exchanges involving intensive modeling of verbal responses within joint activity routines and reinforcement based on fulfilling the intent of the child's communication. (Author/CL)

Four 17- to 21-month-old normally developing, and four 32- to 35-month-old language impaired children, classified as "referential" speakers or "expressive" speakers, produced linguistic features in clusters, and manifested play behaviors that were consistent with the children's pattern of lexical distribution. (Author/MC)

Results of two studies with 45 normal three- to five-year-old children indicated that, when the Ss initiated actions with verbal instruction, their use of conjunctions and clause ordering was more effective than in other initiated contexts without a verbal model. (Author/MC)