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…

It is of deep interest to both linguists and psychologists alike to account for how young children acquire an understanding of number words. In their commentaries, Barner and Butterworth both point out that an important question highlighted by the work of Syrett, Musolino, and Gelman, and one that remains highly controversial, is where number…

How do children use phonological knowledge about spoken language in acquiring literacy? Phonological precursors of literacy include phonological awareness, speech decoding skill, and lexical specificity (i.e., the richness of phonological representations in the mental lexicon). An intervention study investigated whether early literacy skills can…

In recent years, the intersection of cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience with regard to deaf individuals has received increasing attention from a variety of academic and educational audiences. Both research and pedagogy have addressed questions about whether deaf children learn in the same ways that hearing children…

There is reliable evidence that new vocabulary is primarily acquired through wide independent reading. However, struggling readers tend to avoid reading, resulting in limited word encounters and inadequate vocabulary growth, and they often have difficulties inferring the meanings of new words from context. While there are no clear solutions to the…

This study investigated novel word acquisition by 18- and 24-month-old children in the context of adult referential behavior independent of variations in salience. Findings suggest that 24-month olds use referential intent of the speaker to learn new words, but when learning, they may have a less secure grasp on the meaning of speakers'…

This article explores young infants' ability to learn new words in situations providing tightly controlled social and salience cues to their reference. Four experiments investigated whether, given two potential referents, 15-month-olds would attach novel labels to (a) an image toward which a digital recording of a face turned and gazed, (b) a…

Discussed is the language impairment of children with infantile autism. The speech patterns of autistic children, including echolalia, pronomial reversal, silent language, and voice imitation, are described. The clinical picture of the autistic child is compared to that of children with such other disorders as deafness, retardation, and…

The components of the language-based approach to intervention with hearing impaired children which emphasizes the importance of conversational interaction in the preschool years are described. Implications for caregivers are noted. (CL)

A profoundly retarded adolescent acquired 14 new verbal labels while playing a table game which required correct labeling of pictured stimuli for player movement. In addition, the subject's leisure skills were strengthened. (Author/CL)

An investigation of incidental teaching practices on the spontaneous speech of 12 disadvantaged preschool children during free-play periods which demonstrated that such periods can be powerful learning times by capitalizing on moments when children seek new plan materials. (Author/EH)

Provides further evidence of the psychological importance of semantic roles for verbal learning and broadens the realm of earlier work with semantic roles by using connected prose rather than individual sentences. (HOD)

A study examined 12 preschool children's early use of "who,""what," and "which" questions in spontaneous speech. Results indicated that children began to ask object questions before they asked subject questions, and acquired argument questions before adjunct questions. It was suggested that the two results could…

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that development of syntactic comprehension through verbal modeling is enhanced by referent concreteness as a contextual influence. Subjects were 48 children from 3 1/2 to 5 years old. (Author/JH)

This study examined the influence of semantic consistency (meaningfulness) and anomaly on the learning of three types of syntactic pairs. The results showed that meaningful pairs are learned with fewer errors than anomalous pairs. (Author)