Purpose: This preliminary investigation explored potential cognitive and linguistic sources of variance in 2- year-olds' speech-sound discrimination by using the toddler change/no-change procedure and examined whether modifications would result in a procedure that can be used consistently with younger 2-year-olds. Method: Twenty typically…

Purpose: In this study, the authors used neural network modeling to investigate the possible mechanistic basis of developmental language delay and to test the viability of the hypothesis that persisting delay and resolving delay lie on a mechanistic continuum with normal development. Method: The authors used a population modeling approach to study…

Purpose: The existing literature on language outcomes in children born prematurely focuses almost exclusively on standardized test scores rather than discourse-level abilities. The authors of this study looked longitudinally at school-age language outcomes and potential moderating variables for a group of twins born prematurely versus a control…

Purpose: In this study, the authors assessed the effects of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density on word-learning configuration by preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI) and typical language development (TD). Method: One hundred thirty-one children participated: 48 with SLI, 44 with TD matched on age and gender, and 39…

Purpose: In this study, the authors aimed at gaining understanding on the associations of different types of early language and communication profiles with later self-regulation skills by using longitudinal data from toddler age to kindergarten age. Method: Children with early language profiles representing expressive delay, broad delay (i.e.,…

Purpose: The authors of this study investigated the validity of tense and agreement productivity (TAP) scoring in diverse sentence frames obtained during conversational language sampling as an alternative measure of finiteness for use with young children. Method: Longitudinal language samples were used to model TAP growth from 21 to 30 months of…

Purpose: This study investigated the etiology of late language emergence (LLE) in 24-month-old twins, considering possible twinning, zygosity, gender, and heritability effects for vocabulary and grammar phenotypes. Method: A population-based sample of 473 twin pairs participated. Multilevel modeling estimated means and variances of vocabulary and…

Purpose: The Language Development Survey (LDS; Rescorla, 1989) was used to compare Italian and English lexical development. The authors addressed the issue of universal versus language-specific aspects of lexical development by testing language, age, and gender effects on vocabulary scores and by comparing vocabulary composition across languages.…

Purpose: The present study examined the impact of environmental factors (socioeconomic status [SES], the percent of language exposure to English and to Spanish, and primary caregivers' vocabulary knowledge) on bilingual children's vocabulary skills. Method: Vocabulary skills were measured in 58 bilingual children between the ages of 5…

Purpose: Conventional resource-intensive methods for child phonetic development studies are often impractical for sampling and analyzing child vocalizations in sufficient quantity. The purpose of this study was to provide new information on early language development by an automated analysis of child phonetic production using naturalistic…

Purpose: In this study, the authors examined the effects of the Teach-Model-Coach-Review instructional approach on caregivers' use of four enhanced milieu teaching (EMT) language support strategies and on their children's use of expressive language. Method: Four caregiver-child dyads participated in a single-subject, multiple-baseline…

Purpose: Shi and Sánchez (2010) developed models to predict the optimal test language for evaluating Spanish/English (S/E) bilinguals' word recognition. The current study intended to validate their conclusions in a separate bilingual listener sample. Method: Seventy normal-hearing S/E bilinguals varying in language profile were included.…

Purpose: The authors examined (a) whether dose frequency of milieu communication teaching (MCT) affects children's canonical syllabic communication and (b) whether the relation between early canonical syllabic communication and later spoken vocabulary is mediated by parental linguistic mapping in children with intellectual disabilities (ID).…

Purpose: Pronouncing a novel word for the first time requires the transformation of a newly encoded speech signal into a series of coordinated, exquisitely timed oromotor movements. Individual differences in children's ability to repeat novel nonwords are associated with vocabulary development and later literacy. Nonword repetition (NWR) is…

Purpose: To determine whether word learning problems associated with developmental language impairment (LI) reflect deficits in encoding or subsequent remembering of forms and meanings. Method: Sixty-nine 18-to 25-year-olds with LI or without (the normal development [ND] group) took tests to measure learning of 16 word forms and meanings…