This is a research report on the acquisition and development of language in children from 4 to 6 years as observed in the pre-elementary grades. The research was done by a number of teams scattered throughout France, and this book is a collection of the papers prepared as a result of their research. The report is divided into five sections. The…

This paper describes the results of two studies of auditory processing in child aphasia, and their implication for understanding deviant language development. The term "aphasia" is discussed as it is used to describe adult and child language disorders. A first experiment on the auditory functioning in aphasic and nonaphasic children suggests that…

This article concludes that language mixes do not constitute a major interference in the acquisition of bilingualism since children appear to be able to differentiate their two linguistic systems from an early age. (Author/NCR)

Compares and analyzes the types and distributions of cohesive devices used in narrative texts by Dutch-speaking children aged 8-9 and 10-11. Findings indicate a developmental trend in the construction of more cohesive and compact narrative texts. (SED)

A paper by Keenan and Klein (1975) provided evidence for the hypothesis that conversationality is present in children as young as 2 and 1/2 years of age. Results of the study indicated that before the emergence of more adult-like coherency operations, the children passed through a period in which such operations were foreshadowed by vocal play.…

A study was conducted to determine whether children give evidence of using any of six comprehension strategies and whether children of same and different ages use different strategies. It was studied how comprehension performance can best be predicted by other facts about the child, including his language and his language input. The six…

This paper reports the results of a preliminary study dealing with the ways in which children between ages 6 and 7 organize spoken language. In particular, aspects of the temporal and segmental structure of polysyllabic English words containing the syllable C/jul/, as in the word "pediculous," are dealt with. This study is based on the assumption…

From the standpoint of transformational grammar, this experimental work evaluates the extent to which children choose or fail to generalize their rules for the placement of the negative particles "not" and "n't." The subjects were eight three- and four-year-olds of middle-class background who had been producing sentences with…

The crib talk reported here of a 2;2-2;4-year-old boy replicates the phenomenon of crib talk reported in previous studies by other investigators. This study adds a corpus of mother-child interaction (MCI) and tests one aspect of the hypothesis that crib talk may enhance production of linguistic forms at a later date. Transcripts of monologues were…

This review of literature in linguistics and the psychology of language focuses on studies produced from 1961 through 1963. Such topics as language development, generative grammar, semantics, and the role of linguistics in the teaching of reading are covered, and much attention is given to the areas of verbal learning and the psychology of…

The role of language in conservation tasks and the development of the concept of conservation of quantity in young children are investigated in this study. A total of 50 children, aged 3.0 to 4.7 years, were divided into three groups according to age with a large number clustered around age 4.0 years. Children were randomly assigned to one of two…

Paralinguistic and kinesic expression begin at birth and are essential to the development of language. Rhythm, for example, a suprasegmental event, appears to be present at birth or prior to birth. The relationship of physiology to communication is evident in the observations of extra-linguistic aspects of communication, such as movement, the use…

A longitudinal study of three children examined the relation between object permanence and language development. (Author/NCR)

The paper examines the nominal lexicon in later language acquisition as a window on linguistic knowledge and usage across childhood and adolescence. The paper presents a psycholinguistically motivated and cognitively grounded analysis of the distribution of ten semantic noun categories (the Noun Scale) across development, modality, and genre.…

This paper reports on an experiment undertaken to delineate more clearly the relationship between the naming process in children and certain aspects of the environment which may play a role in that process. The investigation concerned the effect of manipulation and of object novelty on naming. Sixteen children, ten girls and six boys, ranging in…