This article reviews the embodied theoretical basis for the meaningful learning of abstract vocabulary and reviews selected educational programs that are theoretically based and have both success and promise for abstract vocabulary development. Abstract vocabulary is a mainstay of academic vocabulary, but its nature and educational development are…

High-quality lexical representations are important for reading comprehension; however, prior research has focused primarily on the verbal aspects of these lexical representations. In this article, the authors argue for the importance of considering nonverbal representational elements of lexical knowledge and for more systematic attention to how…

Background: The role of domain-general short-term memory (STM) in language development remains controversial. A previous finding from the HelSLI study on children with developmental language disorder (DLD) suggested that not only verbal but also non-verbal STM for temporal order is related to language acquisition in monolingual children with DLD.…

There is growing interest in the link between implicit statistical learning (SL) and reading ability. Although learning to read involves both auditory and visual modalities, it is not known whether reading skills might be more strongly associated with auditory SL or visual SL. Here we assessed SL across both modalities in 36 typically developing…

Impaired procedural learning has been suggested as a possible cause of developmental dyslexia (DD) and specific language impairment (SLI). This study examined the relationship between measures of verbal and non-verbal implicit and explicit learning and measures of language, literacy and arithmetic attainment in a large sample of 7 to 8-year-old…

This study focuses on the nature of children's participation in an Australian early childhood context in which their second language is used. The aim is to create knowledge of toddlers' modes and trajectories of participation. Empirical data documenting the participation of two toddlers were gathered through video observations of everyday…

Describes procedures used to study abilities of chimpanzees to be taught written language. Words, sentences, questions, metalinguistics, class concepts, the copula, some quantifiers and if-then logical connections are investigated. Success seems attributable largely to non-linguistic cues. (JM)

The study of 813 learning disabled children (ages 6-11) with test-retest data (after three years) on 224 children found the children to suffer a progressive deterioration in verbal ability whereas their nonverbal ability showed an increase in the earlier years, leveling off thereafter. (Author/DB)

The paper examines aspects of effective language intervention with autistic children. An overview is presented about the nature of language, its perception and comprehension, and the production of speech-language. Assessment strategies are considered. The second part of the paper analyzes traditional and communications-based intervention programs.…

Thirty 4- and 5-year-olds with specific language impairment (SLI) and 30 normally developing peers participated in a discrimination learning-shift paradigm. Both groups were equally successful in extracting regularities from recurring nonverbal stimuli and in making shifts. Findings failed to provide evidence that children with SLI are less able…

A six-year-old nonvocal girl with autism who had acquired a variety of signs and imitative responses consistently failed to acquire a tact (labeling) repertoire. When procedures to transfer stimulus control from verbal to nonverbal stimuli were implemented, the subject quickly learned to tact all 18 target stimuli. (Author/DB)

Investigated whether sustained forms of nonverbal coordinated action facilitates toddlers' generation of verbal discourse with one another. Twenty-four 2-year-olds interacted with an adult, in 2 nonverbal interactive contexts: an imitation game and parallel play. Found that involvement in nonverbal imitation games facilitated toddlers responding…

Concomitant with a child's acquisition of phonological, syntactic, and semantic rules of an adult language is the need to learn pragmatic and contextual abilities for proper use of the language. As early language acquisition is closely allied with play, three children aged about 22 to 40 months were observed during play activities to determine…

Differing amounts and ordering of pictorial content were compared to determine their effect on learning word-referent relations in a second language. Findings indicated there is an optimal level at which nonverbal context facilitates the process of inferring word meanings in a foreign language. (Author/DS)

This study addressed the extent to which performance on selected verbal and nonverbal measures contributed to the prediction of inflection learning with 20 normal boys (ages 4 to 5). Results suggested that inflection learning may be tied more to other language abilities than to nonverbal cognitive skills in normally developing boys. (DB)