Presented are 18 papers developed by the Gulf Coast Consortium and intended to provide documentation of Head Start services to handicapped children. The first three papers provide an overview of the consortium with emphasis on the impact of Head Start programs on the language learning disabled child. Eight papers focus on the use of psychological…

The purposes of this study were to determine (1) whether 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children can segment words, and (2) whether they can profit from instruction in segmentation. In the first phase of the study, all subjects (N=68) received a 28 word test designed to assess children's performance on four different segmentation tasks. Since the children…

Inclass Reactive Language (INREAL) was a Handicapped Children's Early Education Program (HCEEP) funded demonstration model to improve the language and related learning skills of 3 to 5 year old language handicapped and bilingual (Spanish) children by a naturalistic, nonstigmatizing method. A second goals was to redefine the role of the speech…

This study attempted to develop a diagnostic-prescriptive curriculum program to improve the school readiness of disadvantaged preschoolers. The language development patterns of 32 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds were diagnosed by use of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA). Teachers were trained to use this information to provide an…

A 3-month pilot project was undertaken at the University of Texas to gain experience in administering the Cynthia Buchanan Language Program (Buchanan, 1967) and to test its effectiveness in making meaningful changes in the language development of disadvantaged Mexican-American preschoolers. A group of 114 Mexican-American children were chosen as…

A blind multiply handicapped preschooler was taught to respond appropriately to two adjacency pair types ("where question-answer" and "comment-acknowledgement"). The two alternative language acquisition strategies available to blind children were encouraged: echolalia to maintain communicative interactions and manual searching…

Presents a joint statement by various educational associations of concerns about present practices in pre-first grade reading instruction and offers recommendations for improvement. (Author/BB)

Describes a study that supports the idea that participation in sociodramatic play builds the language competence of young children and that play is vital part of good preschool programs. (HOD)

Describes a study of early readers to determine the linguistic and social interactions in the homes of early readers that seemed to make a difference in their reading. (HTH)

Summarizes the literature on the adverse effect of environmental deprivation on Black children, especially during preschool years. Describes the author's study which suggests a relationship between a child's experiences at home and his/her ability to be familiar with common material which forms the experiential core of school activities. (RDN)

The discourse interaction between adult and child was examined in terms of the content of their utterances, and the linguistic and contextual relations between their messages, in order to investigate how children use the information from adults' input sentences to form contingent responses. (Author/BW)

The implementation of a comprehensive reform model for early childhood programs, Curiosity Corner, developed by the Success For All Foundation at the request of the New Jersey Department of Education, is evaluated in this study. The program was implemented in 27 child care and preschool classes in 4 high poverty urban areas and outcomes were…

This study compared language and social skills development in 32 developmentally delayed preschool children classified as having speech/language impairments. Social skills were rated by teachers on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. Language scores were from the Preschool Language Scale administered by speech/language therapists. Statistical…

Describes a feasibility study in which pre-school deaf children were taught some science concepts to help increase their language development. Some evaluation data are reported. (AL)