Noting that young children learn to talk at different ages but within certain developmental boundaries, this document presents two charts to help parents facilitate their toddler's speech. The first chart lists characteristics to look for in a growing, healthy baby at various ages between 3 months and 24 months, and suggestions for when to talk to…

A practicum study, recognizing the expressive language delays of inner-city kindergarten children, implemented two strategies to increase their expressive language ability and their mean length of utterance. The target population, 14 kindergarten students who demonstrated vocabulary development delays on the Brigance Kindergarten Screening Test,…

To determine the relationship between oral and written language conventions at the macro and micro levels, a study analyzed various elements of stories generated by children. Subjects, nine above average readers between grades 4 and 9, were asked to tell a story and then to write a story. Sources of stories, overall plot organization, and number…

This paper reports on two aspects of dyadic communication skills: verbal imitation, and response to questions and commands, as they relate to the development of semantic functions in three English-speaking children. The children, aged 16, 21 and 22 months, were unobtrusively videotaped during weekly free play sessions with their mothers. The…

The Preschool Preposition Test (PPT) is a receptive language test which examines the comprehension of verbal directions using spatial prepositions or prepositional phrases, together with manipulative objects. The 23 items ask the child to place a ball in back of or into another object, and so on. The test is designed for 3 to 5-year old children…

The significance of three mothers' speech for their infants' language development is considered in a continuing longitudinal study. The study began when the children (two females and one male) were 5 and 6 months of age and will continue until the subjects are 3 years old. In the speech data reported the children were from 6 to 18 months of age.…

This paper discusses Lee and Canter's procedure for assessing child language development as an example of how psycholinguistics is beginning to enter the language clinic. The procedure includes recording and transcribing examples of children's sentences, then scoring them to yield a Developmental Sentence Score (DDS). This procedure was compared…

Describes 13 practical ideas for classroom teaching at the elementary level, including writing classmates' biographies, keeping a class diary, and improving emergent readers' vocabulary with word cards. (MM)

Examines vocabulary growth and development, looking at conventional vocabulary instruction and its outcomes. Evidence that word list drills do not promote vocabulary growth effectively is presented, and suggestions are given for fostering increased vocabulary. Promoting wide reading is advocated as the best approach. (SLD)

The data in this study are taken from an on-going research project investigating the development of the production of intervocalic consonants in Mexican Spanish. The total project includes both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of forty children and uses both naturalistic observation and experimental methods. The data discussed here is from…

One of the most remarkable aspects of the babbling of some babies is that it is produced with intonation contours that sound very much like adult sentence melodies. This study reviews the literature and examines longitudinal data collected from seven children. Some of the non-adult-like syntactic uses made of intonation by children for…

This guide to a total developmental language program for kindergarten is divided into three sections: (1) Helpful Hints to the Teacher, (2) Expanding Verbal Power, and (3) Linking Language and Thought. Subjects in Section 2 include hearing and speaking clearly, increasing vocabulary, extending meaning, expanding language patterns, conveying ideas,…

Toddlers in the lowest 10th percentile for lexical production were compared with age- and language-matched controls on measures of phonetic complexity, lexical development, and grammatical complexity. Results indicate an overlap between phonology, lexicon, and grammar and suggest the importance of true consonant production for lexical development.…

The strong relationship between knowledge of vocabulary and reading achievement leads to the conclusion that knowing the meaning of words in a passage enables the reader to answer questions about the passage. The goal of vocabulary instruction is the acquisition of the concepts represented by words as well as the ability to recognize and analyze…

A study is reported relevant to the relationship between first words learned by children and gestural symbolization under a variety of contextual conditions. It is part of a larger longitudinal study of 32 children at 10, 13, 20, and 27 months of age. The children were seen in three standardized situations for eliciting gestural and vocal symbols:…