This longitudinal study examined the relationship between kindergarten word writing andgrade 1 literacy in a large sample of Israeli children. In kindergarten, a majority of childrenproduced writing which displayed most of the graphospatial characteristics of conventional wordwriting, although only one-third of the children demonstrated a working knowledge of thealphabetic principle. Kindergarten writing significantly predicted variance in all three measuresof grade 1 literacy (decoding, spelling, and reading comprehension), even after controlling forgeneral intelligence. We also investigated the role of alphabetic skills and socioliteracy variablesin accounting for the predictive power of kindergarten writing. Kindergarten alphabetic skills(phonemic awareness and knowledge of letter names), but not socioliteracy factors (parental printexposure, parents' reading to child, and Clay's Concepts about Print), explained allthe variance contributed by kindergarten writing to grade 1 decoding and spelling. In the case ofreading comprehension, both alphabetic and socioliteracy variables were able to account for thepredictive power of kindergarten writing. As a precursor of reading comprehension, kindergartenwriting appears to reflect both domain-specific alphabetic skills and broader socioliteracy factorsunderlying the higher order cognitive competencies essential for comprehending text.

Grammatical specific language impairment (G-SLI) has been proposed as a distinct subtypeof language impairment. We assessed a large sample of twins between the ages of 7 and 13 yearson language comprehension tests sensitive to G-SLI. The sample included 37 same-sex twinpairs selected for the presence of language impairment (LI) in one or both twins and 104 twinpairs from the general population. The number and patterns of errors in those with LI replicatedfindings from previous studies of G-SLI. Qualitative markers of G-SLI were derived from thetests. Out of 144 children for whom complete data were available, 2 scored positive on all fivemarkers and 9 scored positive on four of the five markers. Most children who made grammaticalerrors characteristic of G-SLI had co-occurring deficits in other areas. These results raisequestions for theories that treat this disorder as an all-or-none modular deficit.

This study investigated the effects of L1 processing experience on L2 morphologicalawareness. Preliminary cross-linguistic comparisons indicated that morphological awareness intwo typologically distinct languages, Chinese and English, differs in several major ways. Basedon the comparisons, three specific hypotheses were formulated: compared with learners with atypologically similar L1 background, Chinese learners of English as an L2 would be lesssensitive to intraword structural salience, less efficient in structural analysis, and more adept atintegrating word-internal (morphological) and word-external (context) information. Thesehypotheses were tested empirically with two groups of adult L2 learners of English withcontrasting L1 backgrounds (Chinese and Korean). The data demonstrated that virtually nodifference existed between the two ESL groups in their intraword structural sensitivity, and that,although Chinese learners were notably slower than Korean learners in performing intrawordstructural analysis, they were far more efficient in integrating morphological and contextualinformation during sentence processing. Viewed collectively, these findings seem to suggest thatL1 processing experience influences the development of L2 morphological awareness in specificand predictable ways.

A total of 35 children – 20 with expressive specific language impairment (SLI-E) and15 typically developing (TD) peers – were compared longitudinally from 24 to 36 monthswith respect to their production of syllable shapes in 10-minute spontaneous speech samples.SLI-E 24-month-olds predominantly produced earlier developing syllable shapes containingvowels, liquids, and glides. TD 24-month-olds and SLI-E 36-month-olds produced approximatelythe same proportion of syllable types, with the exception of consonant clusters, where TD24-month-olds produced more than SLI-E 36-month-olds. TD children at 36 months showed thegreatest use of syllable shapes containing two different consonants and consonant clusters.Detailed analyses revealed that SLI-E children produced fewer syllable shapes containing finalconsonants, more than one consonant type, and consonant clusters. Furthermore, the childrenwith SLI-E were found to vocalize less often than their TD peers. The possible relationshipsbetween these findings, SLI-E children's concomitant deficits in morphology and syntax,and the implications for diagnosis and remediation are discussed.

Studies on the acquisition of a third language (L3) in a bilingual context have shown thatliteracy in two languages facilitates the acquisition of a third (Cenoz & Valencia, 1994;Swain, Lapkin, Rowen, & Hart, 1990). The present study seeks to contribute to this line ofresearch by comparing the acquisition of English as an L3 by Catalan/Spanish bilingual highschool students in an immersion program with the acquisition of English by Spanishmonolinguals. Data from 201 participants were submitted to a hierarchical multiple regressionanalysis, rendering results that show that bilingualism indeed has a positive effect on theacquisition of an L3. The evidence is discussed from a cognitive perspective.

For adults, written spelling is generally superior to oral spelling. To determine whether thesame holds true for children in kindergarten through second grade, we compared children'sability to spell real words (Experiment 1) and nonsense words (Experiment 2) orally and inwriting. Building on the work of Tangel and Blachman (1992, 1995) and others, we developed areliable system to assess the overall quality of the children's spellings. We also examinedthe phonological and orthographic legality of the spellings. By first and second grade, writtenspellings were superior to oral spellings in both overall quality and representation ofphonological form. This held true for both words and nonwords. The results suggest thatchildren, like adults, more accurately analyze the linguistic structure of a spoken item when theycan represent the results in a lasting, visible form than when they cannot.

Children with histories of early corrective heart surgery (ECHS) are at risk for language,cognitive, and motor delays. This study examined parent–child play in 30 4-year-oldchildren with ECHS and 30 typically developing children. Children were compared on basiclanguage measures and on proportions of symbolic and nonsymbolic talk. Children with ECHSfocused on concrete “here-and-now” talk and produced less symbolic talk thannormative children. Only a third of the children with ECHS were able to produce story episodes.These findings reflect the ECHS children's relatively immature participation in jointpretense and their overreliance on earlier acquired strategies for pretend play. This style ofparticipation may result from difficulty coordinating more complex social intentions withappropriate language forms.

The study explores the effects of the relationship between exposure to two languages inchildhood and metalinguistic abilities. Arabic-speaking children who had been exposed to bothspoken and literary Arabic were compared to Russian–Hebrew bilinguals and Hebrewmonolinguals. All of the children were in kindergarten or first grade. The tests included languagearbitrariness, phonological awareness, and vocabulary. As compared to the Hebrew monolinguals,the Russian–Hebrew bilinguals revealed the following pattern: higher performance onarbitrariness and phonological awareness tasks and lower performance on the vocabularymeasure. The results of the Arab children mimicked those of the Russian–Hebrewbilinguals and differed from those of the Hebrew monolinguals. We conclude that exposure toliterary Arabic requires the same intensive language analyses as those demanded of childrenexposed to languages as different as Russian and Hebrew.

Private speech (PS) – or speech for the self – was studied in preschool-agechildren to determine how widely and with what characteristics it occurs when examined in thefamiliar home setting. Activities were selected that required several steps and that were intendedto engage working memory or longer term recall. Both quantitative (numbers of words andutterances produced) and qualitative (utterance type) analyses were conducted on thechildren's PS. Across the age range from 4 ½ to 6 years, younger children hadhigher frequencies of PS than older children, which fits the predictions made by Vygotsky(1958/1962, 1978). Increased information loads resulted in more PS, indicating a relationbetween PS and task difficulty; however, total quantities of PS were not correlated with degree oftask success. Self-regulatory utterances accounted for 89% of the PS produced; themajority of these utterances involved repetitions of the instructions that appeared to enhancerecall, to help pace the children's activity, or to enable deliberation with respect to makingchoices. There was a strong age trend in which the amount of audible PS decreased with age.Qualitative differences across tasks are presented and considered in relation to how PS functionsfor different activities and possibly achieves adaptive significance.

Complex syntactic structures may be difficult to recognize when produced using augmentativeand alternative communication (AAC) systems that do not contain grammatical markers. Thepresent study investigated adult English speakers' production of Subject and Object relativeclause sentences using a picture/symbol-based AAC system with speech output. Mostparticipants avoided the potential ambiguity that resulted from the absence of grammaticalmarkers. They followed spoken English word order when encoding Object relative clausesentences, but altered this order for Subject relative clause sentences. Most participants usedconstituent proximity to maintain the distinction between Subject and Object relative clausesentences. Results indicate the combined effects of underlying syntactic knowledge and pragmaticvariables on the AAC constituent order patterns observed.

Research has shown that L2 utterances diverge increasingly from target language phoneticnorms as the age of L2 learning increases. Other research has suggested that L2 speakers producelonger utterances than native speakers. The aim of this study was to determine whether L2utterance durations increase as age of learning increases. Fluently produced English sentencesspoken by 240 native speakers of both Italian and Korean (selected on the basis of age of arrival[AOA]) were examined. For both L1 groups, the duration of English sentences waspositively correlated with AOA. The AOA effect was found to be significant even whenconfounding variables were partialed out. These results are taken as preliminary support for theproposal that the more established the L1 is at the time of first exposure to the L2, the more itwill interfere with L2 production, thus requiring greater processing resources to suppress it.

Studies of early-developing consonants (stops, nasals, and glides) in babbling have shownthat most of the variance in consonants and their associated vowels, both within and betweensyllables, is due to a “frame” produced by mandibular oscillation, with very littleactive contribution from intrasyllabic or intersyllabic tongue movements. In a study of fourbabbling infants, the prediction that this apparently basic “frame dominance”would also apply to late-developing consonants (fricatives, affricates, and liquids) was tested.With minor exceptions, confirming evidence for both the predicted intrasyllabic and intersyllabicpatterns was obtained. Results provide further evidence for the frame dominance conception, butsuggest that the early rarity of late-developing consonants may be primarily a result ofintrasegmental production difficulty.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether phonological information was activatedautomatically in processing two-kanji compound words. In Experiment 1, 27 participants judgedwhether pairs of the words were homophones, while another 27 participants judged whether pairswere synonyms. Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 140 ms, 230 ms, or 320 ms. InExperiment 2, 36 participants were asked to make one of the two judgments, as in Experiment 1.SOA was determined individually. The following results were found. Reaction times showedsemantic interference. Phonological interference was observed only under the shortest SOA inExperiment 2. Error rates showed phonological and semantic interferences even when SOA wasthe longest. These findings support the universal phonological principle.

Goswami and Bryant (1990) proposed a theory of reading development based on three causalconnections. One of these causal connections was based on the relationship between rhymingskills and reading development found in English. To explain this connection, they suggested thatyoung readers of English used analogies based on rimes as one means of deciphering thealphabetic code. This proposal has recently become the subject of some debate. The most seriouscritique has been advanced by Seymour and his colleagues (Duncan, Seymour, & Hill,1997; Seymour & Duncan, 1997; Seymour & Evans, 1994). These authors reported aseries of studies with Scottish schoolchildren which, they claim, show that progression in normalreading acquisition is from a small unit (phonemic) approach in the initial stage to a large unit(rime-based) approach at a later stage. Two experiments are presented which replicate thoseconducted by Seymour and his group with samples of English schoolchildren. Different resultsare found. It is argued that methodological and instructional factors may be very important forthe conceptual interpretation of studies attempting to pit “small” units (phonemes)against “large” units (onsets and rimes) in reading. In particular, it is necessary toconsider whether a given phonological awareness task requires the recognition of sharedphonological segments (“epilinguistic” processing) or the identification andproduction of shared phonological segments (metalinguistic processing). It is also important totake into account the nature of the literacy instruction being implemented in participatingschools. If the phonological aspects of this tuition focus solely on phonemes (small units), thenpoor rime-level (large unit) performance may be found in metalinguistic tasks.

Using a word order correction paradigm, we assessed syntactic awareness skills in childrenwith good and poor reading comprehension, matched for age, decoding skill, and nonverbalability. Poor comprehenders performed less well than normal readers, and the performance ofboth groups was influenced by the syntactic complexity and semantic ambiguity of the sentences.These findings support the view that poor comprehenders have language processing difficultiesencompassing grammatical as well as semantic weaknesses, although their phonologicalprocessing skills are normal. The implications of such language weaknesses for the developmentof skilled reading are discussed.

This case study examines the shifting bilingual preference of three French/Englishbilingual children over a three-year period. It also clarifies the distinction between the manyoften misleading terms used to refer to bilingual preference (i.e., a bilingual's languagechoice). The children's fluctuating bilingual preference is accounted for in terms of threecontextual domains: home, school, and community. The home domain was predominantlyFrench-speaking, while the community domain shifted between predominantly English-speakingLouisiana and French-speaking Québec. The 10-year-old identical twin girls were in aFrench immersion program in Louisiana during the entire three-year period; their 12-year-oldbrother was not. A new, domain-sensitive longitudinal measure – the bilingual preferenceratio (BPR) – was created and applied for each child using 36 months of weekly taperecordings of mealtime conversations. BPR fluctuations indicate that the greatest effect on thechildren's language preference was community immersion in the target language.However, the twins' markedly greater preference for speaking French at home inLouisiana is attributed to the influence of French immersion at school.

A widely held assumption about dyslexia is that difficulties in accessing the constituentphonemes of the speech stream are responsible for specific reading and spelling difficulties. Inconsistent orthographies, however, the acquisition of accurate phonological recoding andphonemic awareness was found to pose much less difficulty than in English, and even dyslexicchildren were found to exhibit high levels of performance in phonemic segmentation (Wimmer,1993). Nevertheless, using a rather complex phonological awareness and manipulation task(spoonerisms: MAN–HAT → HAN–MAT), Landerl, Wimmer, and Frith(1997) found support for the original position on phonological awareness deficit, as both Germanand English dyslexic children showed poor performance. In the present studies, the spoonerismresponses of Landerl et al. were reanalyzed such that children were given credit for partiallycorrect responses (e.g., a response of HAN for MAN–HAT). Such partially correctresponses were taken to indicate full segmentation of both stimulus words at theonset–rime level. The effect of this rescoring was that the error rate dropped from76% to 26% for the English dyslexic children and from 63% to 15%for the German dyslexic children. Even higher performance levels, although not perfect as for theage-matched control children, were found on a nonword spelling task in both groups. A secondstudy examined the segmentation of consonant clusters in younger German dyslexic children andfound performance levels of about 90% correct when memory problems were ruled out.We argue that, at least in the context of a consistent orthography (and a phonics-based teachingapproach), deficits in phoneme awareness are only evident in the early stages of readingacquisition, whereas rapid naming and phonological memory deficits are more persistent indyslexic children.

The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) are a pair of widely usedparent-report instruments for assessing communicative skills in infants and toddlers. This reportdescribes short-form versions of the CDIs and their development, summarizes newly availablenormative data and psychometric properties of the instruments, and discusses research andclinical applications. The infant short form (Level I, for 8- to 18-month-olds) contains an89-word checklist for vocabulary comprehension and production. The two parallel versions ofthe toddler short form (Level II, Forms A and B, for 16- to 30-month-olds) each contain a100-word vocabulary production checklist and a question about word combinations. The formsmay also be useful with developmentally delayed children beyond the specified age ranges.Copies of the short forms and the normative tables appear in the appendices.

When discriminating between unknown foreign languages, infants, young children, and adultlisteners are able to make same-language/different-language discrimination judgments atbetter than chance levels. In these studies (Lorch & Meara, 1989; Mehler et al., 1988;Stockmal, 1995), foreign language samples have often been provided by different talkers,confounding voice characteristics and language characteristics. In Experiments 1 and 2, using thesame talkers for different pairs of languages, we found that listeners were able to discriminatebetween languages they did not know, even when spoken by the same talker. That is, listenerswere able to separate talker from language characteristics. Experiment 3 used multidimensionalscaling to explore the bases of listener judgments. Listeners were attentive to prosodic propertiesand influenced by their familiarity with the test languages.

The relation between similarity and dissimilarity of meaning and similarity of context wasanalyzed for synonymous nouns. New semantic similarity and dissimilarity rating tests with anempirically determined series of linguistic anchors and conventional, arbitrarily anchored semanticsimilarity ratings were compared. Contextual similarity was elicited by a sorting test based onsubstitution and yielding d-primes. The study found reliable correlations between the d-primes andthe different ratings for semantic similarity and dissimilarity of the synonymous nouns across awide continuum of meaning. The data strongly supported a contextual hypothesis of meaning. Thedata endorsed the claim that people abstract a contextual representation from experiencing themultiple natural linguistic contexts of a word. Semantic similarity and dissimilarity rating formatswith an empirically chosen series of linguistic anchors and a sorting test of contextual similarityyielded stronger support for a contextual hypothesis than did alternative methods of elicitinglexical and contextual similarity.