Purpose: This study was conducted in a large Midwestern metropolitan area to examine the language environments at home and in center-based childcare for young children who are living in poverty. We compared child language use and exposure in the home and childcare settings using extended observations with automated Language Environment Analysis to…

Children's frequency of stuttering can be affected by utterance length, syntactic complexity, and lexical content of language. Using a unique small-scale within-subjects design, this study explored whether language samples that contain more stuttering have (a) longer, (b) syntactically more complex, and (c) lexically more diverse utterances than…

While most early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs taken to scale in the United States have served socially disadvantaged 3- to 5-years-olds, Norway scaled up universal ECEC from age 1. We investigated the consequences of Norway's universal ECEC scale-up for children's early language skills, exploiting variation in ECEC coverage across…

This study examined the joint effects of home environment and center-based child care quality on children's language, communication, and early literacy development, while also considering prior developmental level. Participants were 95 children (46 boys), assessed as toddlers (mean age = 26.33 months; Time 1) and preschoolers (mean age = 68.71…

The Community Connections preschool program (herein referred to as Community Connections) was developed to help prepare children in home-based child care for success in school and in life. It has three goals: (1) to make state prekindergarten classroom experiences available to children in home-based care, (2) to extend classroom learning…

Two hypotheses related to the emergence of multiword speech were explored: (1) that multiword speech follows developments in children's ability to map communicative intents to single-word expressions; and (2) that the acquisition of these mapping principles paves the way for the emergence of syntax. The developments consist of an increase in the…

Available evidence suggests that early language intervention is effective when designed to meet the needs of the individual child. Intervention should begin when risk or predisposing factors so indicate or when significant delays are present. Intervention should respect the child's developmental level in relevant areas and should address…

When assessed for speech/language development, 31 children (age 1-12) fitted with endotracheal tubes for more than 3 months beginning by age 13 months showed overall language functioning within normal limits and commensurate with cognitive ability. However, a pattern of expressive language disability was noted in the oldest group. (Author/JDD)

Patterns of growth in one language in relation to growth in the other and also with respect to growth in both languages were studied in a group of 20 bilingual (English/Spanish) infants ages 10 to 30 months. The rate and pace of development were similar in both groups; differences among the bilinguals included their use of "referential"…

Intended for parents and others caring for young children, this viewer's guide and videotape leads adults along the path of child's language acquisition and demonstrates how to use a language-rich environment to communicate with infants, toddlers, and preschool children in ways to foster language development. The first half of the guide presents…

Fifty-seven children, aged 23-28 months, were assessed using the Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development, mean length of utterance, and Minnesota Child Development Inventory (MCDI). The MCDI Expressive Language scale was found to be a valid predictor of expressive language. The MCDI Comprehension-Conceptual scale appeared to assess both…

This study examined the effects of maternal directive and nondirective styles of interaction on the emergence of verbal communicative intent in toddlers, and sought to understand the association between maternal interaction styles and young children's pragmatic acquisition. During free play, maternal utterances of 12 mother-child dyads, with…

Investigates comprehension of metaphoric compounds. The study asked children and adults to identify referents of various types of these compounds. Findings reveal that 5-year-olds outperformed 3-year-olds but performed significantly less well than adults and that 3-year-olds did not generally interpret the compounds literally. (37 references)…

Based on research in infant sign language, this book teaches parents methods of communicating with their infants through the use of simple bodily movements that signify objects, events, and needs. Noting that communication between parent and child can flourish between 9 months and 30 months, when a baby's desire to communicate outstrips the…

Toddlers with slow expressive language development were compared on three global measures of phonological behavior to age-mates with normal speech development. The measures were the average level of complexity of syllable structures, the number of different consonant phonemes produced, and the percentage of consonants correctly produced in…