The importance of metacognitive language exposure to early educational achievement is widely recognized in the development literature. However, few studies have explored parents' metacognitive language, while accounting for family SES and stress within the parent-child relationship. This is a preliminary descriptive study to explore…

Background: Contemporary adolescents use e-mail for a variety of purposes, including peer communication and education. Research into these uses has focused on typically developing individuals; much less is known about the use of e-mail by exceptional youth. Aims: The present study examined the structure and form of e-mail messages sent by…

Little is known about what predicts the budding sense of self-competence in preschoolers. This is particularly true of cognitive competence, which may have implications for later schooling. Based on previous research with older children, it was expected that feelings of self-competence would be influenced by attitudes of significant others as well…

Most vocabulary growth during the school-age years occurs incidentally. However, little is understood about the influence of language skills on word knowledge growth during reading. Using a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, we examined incidental word learning through reading, considering the presence/absence of supportive context and…

Facilitative linguistic input directly connected to children's interest and focus of attention has become a recommended component of interventions for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This longitudinal correlational study used two assessment time points and examined the association between parental undemanding…

Among the several forms of accommodations used in the assessment of English language learners (ELLs), language-based accommodations are the most effective in making assessments linguistically accessible to these students. However, there are significant challenges associated with the implementation of many of these accommodations. This article…

In this study we investigated the correlation between individual linguistic ability based on performance levels and their engagement of typical and atypical language areas in the brain. Eighteen healthy subjects between 21 and 64 years participated in language ability tests, and subsequent functional MRI scans measuring brain activity in response…

Research Findings: The present cross-sectional study investigated the question of whether 6 different temperament dimensions (inhibition to novelty, social orientation, motor activity, positive emotionality, negative emotionality, and attention) influenced cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM) in 168 children (86 three/four-year-olds and 82…

Finding the match between individuals and educational treatments is the aim of both educators and the aptitude-treatment interaction research paradigm. Using the latent growth curve analysis, the present study investigates the interaction between the type of explicit instructional approaches (deductive vs. explicit-inductive) and the level of…

In the past few decades, approaches to language assessment and perspectives on learning have changed. This article highlights those developments with the greatest significance for teachers and classroom-based language assessment, including the emergence of new perspectives on the nature of language ability and learning, use of an expanded array of…

Children aged 3-2 years (n = 184) with typical development, deafness, autism, or Asperger syndrome took a series of theory-of-mind (ToM) tasks to confirm and extend previous developmental scaling evidence. A new sarcasm task, in the format of H. M. Wellman and D. Liu's (2004) 5-step ToM Scale, added a statistically reliable 6th step to the scale…

Language ability is a known predictor of outcome in children with autism but plays a more controversial role for higher functioning children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We studied the relationship between early language milestones and later structural language, adaptive functioning and autism symptoms in a sample of 76 children (mean age…

This paper examines the key linguistic arguments underpinning Basil Bernstein's theory of "elaborated" and "restricted" "codes". Building on a review of selected highlights from the collective critical response to Bernstein, the paper attempts to clarify the relationship of the theory to "deficit" views…

Background: Little is known about the nature, range and prevalence of different subgroups in language trajectories extant in a population from 4 to 11 years. This hinders strategic targeting and design of interventions, particularly targeting those whose difficulties will likely persist. Methods: Children's language abilities from 4 to 11 years…

This book presents original, empirical data from quantitative and qualitative research studies in the field of language learning aptitude, ability, and individual differences. It does so from the perspectives of Second Language Acquisition, psychology, neuroscience and sociolinguistics. All studies included in the book use a similar and uniform…