Maternal education is a strong correlate of children's language, cognitive, and academic development. In most prior research, mothers' education has been treated as a fixed characteristic, yet many mothers, particularly economically and educationally disadvantaged mothers, attend school after the birth of their children. In the present study, we…

This study examined progress after 1 year of treatment for children with autism who received a mean of 36 hours per week one-to-one University of California at Los Angeles Applied Behavior Analysis (UCLA ABA) treatment. Two types of service provision were compared: an intensive clinic based treatment model with all treatment personnel (N = 23),…

A review of research on early receptive language development of normal and language-handicapped children uses a functional-analysis perspective to emphasize how developmental changes are effected through the interactions of children with their environments. Lexical acquisition and early morphological/syntactic acquisition are addressed. (Author/CL)

This study aimed to investigate the relationships between abilities to initiate and respond to joint attention and symptoms of autism that have, and have not, been theoretically linked to joint attention. Participants were 51 boys and five girls with autistic disorder, aged between 2 years and 6 years 5 months. Measures of joint attention…

The relation between theory of mind and affective perspective taking was examined in a study with 42 three- to five-year-olds. Children completed tasks measuring affective perspective taking, theory of mind, and receptive language abilities. Significant positive correlations existed between overall affective perspective taking and theory of mind…

Background: Empirical research suggests that social disadvantage has a negative effect on the development of language, and related cognitive skills such as reading. There is, however, no corresponding body of research on the impact of social disadvantage on motor development. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of…

Researchers and educators have developed an interest in language development. Their studies focused on the cultural context in which language is learned and developed and its relationship to cognitive development. This article reviews the researchers' definitions on oracy and its social facets of language learning. Specifically, it reviews studies…

Reports on a longitudinal study that investigated the claim that phonological memory contributes to vocabulary acquisition in young children. Findings show support for the claim that the capacity component of nonword repetition contributes directly to vocabulary in young children. (Author/VWL)

In this article, the author describes ways in which teachers can help children who exhibit problems in communicating due to language difficulties. In this particular case, the child described is very good at expressing herself, but does not seem to understand what others say to her, which limits her ability to follow directions and to interact…

Cognitive and language skills of 39 siblings of children with autism (SIBS-A) and 39 siblings of typically developing children (SIBS-TD) at ages 4, 14, 24, 36, and 54 months were compared. Twelve of the 39 SIBS-A revealed a delay in cognition and/or language (including one child diagnosed with autism) compared to only two SIBS-TD. Developmental…

Existing studies of child care have not been able to determine whether higher quality child care protects children from the effects of poverty, whether poverty and lower quality child care operate as dual risk factors, or whether both are true. The objective of the current study was to test two pathways through which child care may serve as a…

Purpose: The authors asked whether adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) could fast-map novel nouns and verbs when word learning depended on using the speaker's pragmatic or syntactic cues. Compared with typically developing (TD) comparison children, the authors predicted that syntactic cues would prove harder for the group with DS to use and that…

In this investigation we examined the relation of children's reported feelings about school during kindergarten or first grade to their academic achievement at the end of fifth grade. Participants were children (N=103) who lived in poverty during early childhood and who were placed on individualized education programs (IEPs) during their…

Evaluation of the ability of 12 hearing children (3-year-olds) to use iconic cues to comprehend signs indicated that resemblance of signs to their referents did not enable subjects to decipher the meaning of most signs. Results were applied to use of adapted assessment instruments with young hearing impaired children. (DB)