The use of the language experience approach to teach readiness and beginning reading and writing skills in preschool programs is explored. The value of this holistic approach is illustrated with a case study of a preschool child with a severe expressive language delay and phonological disorder. (DB)

This article identifies speech and language goals to improve the safety of school-age deaf children. These include vocalizing or clearly communicating "no!"; communicating a general physical description of another person; communicating their own first and last name, address, and telephone number to a hearing person; and communicating about…

Data from two-year-old children and mothers were collected concerning age at which she began to read to child, frequency of home reading, number of stories read per week, frequency of visits by child to library. Picture-book reading exposure was more strongly related to receptive than expressive language. Age of onset of home reading routines was…

The study compared results of the Preschool Language Scale, administered to 214 rural and 214 suburban children in Nebraska. Both groups scored above age level, but a higher percentage of rural children failed a wide range of verbal ability and auditory comprehension items. The scale did not meet criteria for nonbiased, ecologically valid…

This review of research on language development of hearing children of deaf parents identified three areas of focus: (1) oral language development; (2) sign language development; and (3) mode of communication--oral and/or manual. Areas of future study are suggested. (Author/DB)

The consistency of parental reports of expressive vocabulary and word combinations with observed expressive language among 21- to 27- month-old children regularly exposed to English and Spanish was investigated. The number of different words parents reported correlated with the number of different words children used during a 30-minute videotape.…

Analyzes the effectiveness of e-mail as a tool to promote foreign language learning. Identifies the following features of the foreign language generated through the electronic medium: greater amount of language; more variety of topics and language functions; higher level of language accuracy; more similarity with oral language; more…

Two groups of preschool and young school-aged children (n=9) with severe speech impairment received individual phonological awareness instruction utilizing two different methods: graphic symbols or graphic symbols with synthetic speech output. Children who used synthetic speech output demonstrated marked increases in natural speech production.…

A study investigated the relationship between speech production and several demographic and developmental factors in 147 children (ages 14-60 months) with hearing impairments. Significant predictors of speech intelligibility and phonetic inventory included the child's age, expressive language ability, degree of hearing loss, mode of communication,…

This study examined early childhood characteristics of 82 11-year- old boys with either reading disabilities (RD) only, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) only, or both conditions. At ages 3 and 5 the RD only boys had performed poorly on measures of receptive and expressive language, whereas the RD/ADHD groups performed poorly on…

A study investigated the effects of using videotaped self-modeling on the acquisition of new linguistic structures used for requesting in three preschoolers with developmental disabilities. Participants were able to learn through self-modeling; however, initial difficulties with generalization to the classroom setting were found. (CR)

Two boys, ages 7 and 9, with severe developmental disabilities were taught to use requests conditionally (when desired items were proximally distant) to obtain desired snack items. Results suggest that the conditioned discriminations were established quickly and both learners generalized their conditional discriminations to other contexts.…

Previous work by our group has shown that infant emotional vitality (EV), the lively expression of shared emotion both positive and negative, predicts cognitive and language abilities in toddlerhood. Specifically, infants who demonstrated a pattern of high emotional expression combined with high bids to their caregivers, fared significantly better…

An experimental procedure was developed to investigate word-learning skills of children who use cochlear implants (CIs). Using interactive play scenarios, 2- to 5-year olds were presented with sets of objects (Beanie Baby stuffed animals) and words for their names that corresponded to salient perceptual attributes (e.g., "horns" for a goat). Their…

This study compared multiple characteristics of girls' and boys' vocabulary in 6 different linguistic communities--1 urban and 1 rural setting in each of 3 countries. Two hundred fifty-two mothers in Argentina, Italy, and the United States completed vocabulary checklists for their 20-month-old children. Individual variability was substantial…