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…

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…

The Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test was administered to 56 males and 52 females from 45 to 80 months of age to investigate sex differences in the expressive vocabulary of Head Start children. Data indicated no significant sex differences. (Author/PN)

The connected discourse tracking technique was adapted to an auditory story modeling procedure with two four- to five-year-old children with moderately-severe hearing losses. Over four academic quarters, the two children's word per minute scores increased substantially demonstrating the feasibility of this task for children in this age range. (DB)

Narrative attainment was assessed in 76 four-year-old children at risk for brain injury because of histories of early corrective heart surgery. Despite considerable heterogeneity in narrative performance, children with early corrective heart surgery produced fewer narrative components than typically developing children. Implications for clinical…

This study examined word-finding ability, measured by accuracy and latency of response, in a group of eight preschool stutterers (mean age 4.2 years) and two groups of eight nonstutterers (mean age 4.4 years) matched according to age, gender, race, and receptive vocabulary. Results indicated that, as a group, preschool children who stutter and…

Teaching Research Initial Expressive Language Program (developed by H. Sloane, et al.) is a structured language program for moderately and severely handicapped preschool children. (Author/PHR)

Describes how 25 mothers across children's age groups (6 months olds through 4-year-olds) used prosody, specifically pitch and stress variations, while reading with their children. Finds that the mothers' intent was to guide children's understanding of the complexities of the story. Indicates that all the mothers used pitch and stress in…

The knowledge of letter names measured just before children enter school has been known for a long time as one of the best longitudinal predictors of learning to read in an alphabetic writing system. After a period during which the comprehensive investigation of this relationship was largely disregarded, there is now a growing interest in attempts…

This bibliographic review aims to present a single comprehensive source of references to facilitate clinical application of data obtained on the vocal activity of normal infants and to facilitate continued research on prelinguistic vocal output. The bibliography cites the published observational, empirical, and theoretical reports that examine the…

The article considers how three types of language skills (receptive, functional expressive, and descriptive expressive) can be integrated into typical gross and fine motor activities for language delayed preschoolers. (Author/CL)

The study with 135 children (3-12 years of age) with Down Syndrome or other developmental disabilities found no significant differences in rate of gain across 6 domains when the amount of time in mainstreamed environments was varied. Down Syndrome subjects improved expressive language skills most at sites with no integration. (Author/DB)

The study compared the use of language functions and language interactions in a structured setting with normal and language-disordered preschoolers. Language disordered children performed less appropriately on the average across all measures and the difference between groups was greater at younger ages. (Author/DB)