We trained forty German-speaking children aged 1;8-2;0 in their comprehension of UNTER [UNDER]. The target word was presented within semantically organized input in the form of a "narrative" to the experimental group and within "unconnected speech" to the control group. We tested children's learning by asking them to…

Forty children, aged 1 ; 8-2 ; 0, participated in one of three training conditions meant to enhance their comprehension of the spatial term "under": the +Gesture group viewed a symbolic gesture for "under" during training; those in the +Photo group viewed a still photograph of objects in the "under" relationship; those in the Model Only group did…

This is a study of the lexical and grammatical abilities of 16 lexically precocious talkers. These children, aged 2;0 were compared to their age-matched peers, 22 typical talkers aged 2;0, and their expressive vocabulary-matched peers, 22 typical talkers aged 2;6. Individual differences in children's lexical knowledge at 2;0 were stable -- evident…

A set of tri-zygotic quadruplets, three girls and one boy, participated in weekly observations from 1;2 to 1;10 (years;months), a period of transition from prelinguistic gesture to 50 words. In the study, one girl served as a genetic mate to her identical twin and a biological risk mate to her fraternal sister. The biological risk mates achieved…

Examines the composition of the early productive vocabulary of eight Korean and eight English-learning children and the morpho-syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic characteristics of their caregivers' input in order to determine parallels between caregiver input and early lexical development. (Author/VWL)

Investigated the hierarchical organization of the semantic system in preschoolers with and without word-finding deficits. Children named a series of objects at multiple levels of the noun hierarchy in response to contrast questions. Children with word-finding deficits had similar abilities to the other children but did not have enough stored…

Describes an unusual phonological pattern exhibited by a child aged two years that involves the production of word-final strident continuants in words whose adult forms contain these features in initial, rather than final, position (e.g., ops for soap). (13 references) (GLR)