Vocabulary development of three children, aged 1;6 to 1;8, who had not yet begun to evidence a vocabulary spurt was followed to determine if these children would eventually have a vocabulary spurt. Results of the study are discussed in the context of the argument that a substantial proportion of children never evidence a vocabulary spurt. (JL)

Investigated narrative abilities and their relation to theory of mind by having 54 children and young adults with autism and mental retardation, along with 17 normal subjects, tell a story from a wordless picture book. When closely matched on language ability, the subjects exhibited no significant differences on measures of narrative length and…

Examined the relationship between global writing quality and lower level analytic measures of writing, with a focus on cohesive indices, among 50 English-speaking Canadian fourth-graders. Results showed that both cohesive indices and lower level writing measures each accounted for a significant amount of the variance in holistic scores. (Contains…

Compared self-deprecation, self-confidence, and fatalistic belief among 1,034 Mexican American eighth graders who reported themselves a biliterate, English monoliterate, Spanish monoliterate, or oral bilingual. Found that Mexican American children who identified themselves as biliterate had higher self-confidence than the other groups. (Contains…

Examined the effects of bilingualism on cognitive ability among 50 third- and fourth-grade Mexican Spanish-English bilinguals with low English proficiency. No relationship was found between degree of bilingualism and nonverbal intelligence, contrary to the level of bilingualism hypothesis. (Contains 36 references.) (MDM)

Examined maternal talk about events regarding hidden, missing, or absent persons or objects, and the relationship of maternal language to children's acquisition of words for disappearance, among 12 mother-infant pairs. Results found that infants who had acquired "gone" and similar terms experienced more disappearance events than children who had…

Compared clinical and psycholinguistic approaches to the measurement of verbal behavior according to their ability to discriminate among individuals with schizophrenia, manic- depression, and controls. On the linguistic measures, the speech of individuals with schizophrenia differed significantly from the other two groups in productivity and…

Criticizes the computer modelling experiments conducted by Sokolik and Smith (1992), which involved the learning of French gender attribution using connectionist architecture. The article argues that the experiments greatly oversimplified the complexity of gender learning, in that they were designed in such a way that knowledge that must be…

Examines research on adult second-language learning in regard to the proposal that reflexive verbs move in logical form (LF). The results of a study of 58 adult learners of Japanese show that learners' knowledge of the reflexive "zibun" at a high-proficiency level is consistent with the LF approach. (Contains 43 references.) (MDM)

Two studies examined the performance of English-speaking learners of French as a Second Language in three areas of French morphosyntax. In both cases, learners were found to increase gradually the structural domain in which they were able to operate as their level of competence improved. (Contains 62 references.) (MDM)

Criticizes the research of Clahsen (1991) and Clahsen and others (1992), which claims that a statistical tendency to produce more irregular than regular plurals in compounds among native and non-native learners of German is due to a biologically innate predisposition accounted for by the level-ordered morphology model of Kiparsky (1982). (Contains…

Discusses the evolution of comparative literature as a discipline in the 20th century and how comparative analysis has affected other academic disciplines, focusing on the impact of comparative literature and analysis on Russian and East European studies. (Contains 11 references.) (MDM)

Outlines the philosophy and goals of Connecticut College's Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts (CISLA), an undergraduate certificate program founded in 1989 with the goal of "internationalizing" every major. Also discusses how the liberal arts tradition can help conceptualize international studies. (Contains five references.)…

Discusses efforts by Agnes Scott College to develop a languages-across-the-curriculum program and other initiatives to link language study with other disciplines, and examines the strengths and weaknesses of the program after three years and plans for future expansion. (Contains eight references.) (MDM)

Outlines the focus, curriculum, and outcomes of the Culture and Commerce interdisciplinary program offered by the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. The program includes language study, international business courses, a semester abroad, and an internship with an international organization in New York City. (Contains four…