A classification and description of cry types stimulated by different internal sources--hunger, pain, illness and alarm. Various features of each type were distinguished by spectrographic analysis. Pain cries seemed to be the basic type from which other types evolve. Comparisons with other studies were made. (AMH)

Discusses the use of story retelling as an instructional strategy, describing its potential benefits, including improvement in reading comprehension, use of oral language, and memory. (ARH)

Examines factors that contributed to unexpectedly large gains in verbal competence among a diverse and representative sample of urban first graders. Concludes that exceptionally high growth in the first grade is associated prominently with the characteristics of teachers and the maturity/personality and academic self-image of the students.…

Describes a study of four- to five-year-old children's interpretations of statements involving "know" (savoir) and "think" (croire). The study tried to ascertain the language operations that modify a proposition or a basic assertion and to show the speaker's attitude towards the event asserted in the statement. (SED)

Presents examples of classroom activities designed to improve reading through improved vocabulary. (RB)

In these data and on the kinds of analogies produced by a group of highly original men and women, the simple image/direct analogy stands out as the significant thinking operation used to make the familiar strange. These subjects apparently have not found the need to use personal, symbolic, or fantasy analogy. (Author)

Listeners had more difficulty identifying vowels uttered by 4-year-olds classified as late language users than those uttered by 4-year-olds classified as normal. (MH)

Results showed that 12 language disordered children (four to six years old) selectively marked new information in verbal communication, just as normal children do. Language disordered and normal children, furthermore, manifested the same developmental sequence of strategies for deemphasizing old information. (Author/CL)

Verbal and nonverbal components of pointing initiation by Down's Syndrome children when looking at books were studied. Analysis of initiation patterns and point duration revealed possible developmental progression from a stage where point and exchange duration are linked to a stage where pointing becomes more detached from the exchange. (21…

Investigates developmental change in inter- and intrahemispheric transfer of tactile information in two experiments with 74 and 77 subjects aged 4, 6, 10, and 20 years. Results indicate a developmental improvement in inter- and intrahemispheric transfer of tactile information. (RJC)

Presents a simple scheme, based on formal categories, for coding stylistic variation in the early lexicon. When applied to the first 50 and 100 words of 12 children between 0;11 and 2;3, the major dimensions of difference are found to be the relative proportion of common nouns and the relative proportion of frozen phrases. (31 references) (GLR)

Experiments with groups of 30 children (aged 3 through 6) and 32 children (aged 5 through 8) showed that (1) children use linguistic form-class information with familiar discrete objects, (2) children do not use linguistic form-class information with familiar food, and (3) children use only object category information with unfamiliar items.…