A study examined the use of a body awareness microcomputer program on young children as a predictor of early reading achievement. Subjects, 58 preschool and kindergarten students (prereaders) from a university laboratory school in the southern region of the United States, were asked to work in the microcomputer center in small groups to identify…

It is proposed that in studying the development of children's speech, the findings in the data are heavily influenced by what is expected to be found on the basis of our theoretical preconceptions. This phenomenon is actually more widespread than has previously been acknowledged, and our expectations about how children learn language may have to…

As a preschool screening instrument, the Preschool Preposition Test (PPT) can play an important role in the early identification of cognitive delay. PPT scores increase appropriately with chronological age. Cognitive data demonstrate impressive correlations with recognized intelligence tests (the Stanford-Binet and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary…

This paper examines certain of the cues to surface constituency that are salient to children in the comprehension of syntactic structure. Accessibility is studied through a set of experiments requiring seven-year-old children to repeat certain syntactic constituents. These children can correctly identify subjects and also predicate phrases with…

Infant bilingualism can be defined as a child being exposed to two or more languages from birth. Because of the dearth of first-hand research on the effect of a bilingual environment on a child's speaking patterns, parents from multilingual backgrounds raised their daughter in a bilingual environment, German and Spanish, in England. They speak to…

An introductory statement notes the increased interest in the fields of communication theory, linguistics, and psycholinguistics during the period 1953-57 and suggests reasons for this attention. The body of the article summarizes and comments upon some of the relevant literature published since 1953 in these three interrelated areas, limiting the…

Forty blind children (ages 6 to 14, IQ's 65 to 132) in residential schools were studied to discover the relationship of verbalism to age, intelligence, experience, and personal adjustment. The children were given 40 selected words to obtain definitions, experience claims, and visually oriented verbalism scores. They then tried to identify items…

The effects of age and intelligence levels upon word associations were studied in 96 intellectually retarded, normal, and superior children with IQ's of 65 to 80, 91 to 110, and 117 to 158 respectively. A word association and a word usage task (reliability coefficients of .91 and .98) called for homogeneous responses to six form classes--count…

Previous research has shown how macro-structures can affect children's verbalizations. This study focuses on whether conversational contexts of forms are learned along with syntax, on what makes syntax, and on how to predict speech. Transcripts of videotapes of young children provided a matrix of function or act against actual utterance, wherein…

Dr. Simon Belasco's paper "Programmed Instruction and the Psychology of Second Language Learning" explores basic assumptions held by curriculum designers and teachers concerning the possibility of second language acquisition in an artificial, unicultural, and contrived classroom environment. Concepts relating to scope and sequence, New Key…

This study examines ways in which children verbalize emotional experiences at successive age levels. Four groups of 16 boys and girls each drawn from the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth grades of a middle class private school in New York City were asked to describe happiness, sadness, love, anger, and fear. Raw protocols were scored according to…

Program descriptions are introduced by theories of the reasons for the apparent low IQ of many black ghetto children. The theories are the genetic, the stimulus deprivation, the expectation, and the learning-exchange theory. Five experiments with ghetto underachievers are described. The first was designed to use token exchange in a remedial class…

This article investigates the acquisition of a variety of standard English (SE) by children whose first language is Hawaii Creole English (HCE). The hypothesis was made that, in a speech community with high prestige and low prestige codes, learning the dominant code would not adversely affect performance in the first language. The subjects, in…

A TEACHER'S EXPERIENCE IN GUIDING A GROUP OF 40 FOURTH-GRADERS IN WRITING A BOOK IS REPORTED, AND THE BOOK IS INCLUDED. PROVIDED ARE DESCRIPTIONS OF--(1) THE STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS OF WRITING EACH CHAPTER OF THE BOOK, (2) THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STUDENTS'"OWN ENGLISH BOOK"--RULES FOR USAGE, SPELLING, PUNCTUATION, AND CAPITALIZATION,…

A study, at the University of Chicago, of 177 unselected children--an entire first-grade class of normal intelligence, of common ethnic background, and within 6 months of their sixth birthday--was made to determine (1) whether those children with speech inaccuracies consistent enough to qualify them for speech therapy would achieve in their school…