Prior research shows that preliteracy development of children with a hearing loss from homes where English is not the primary language parallels literacy development in children with hearing loss from monolingual homes. Although there are some parallels, there are also some elements that are unique to children from linguistically diverse,…

Gainful employment for adults in the United States currently requires high levels of literacy. As challenging as these requirements may be for the workforce at large, for adults who have a hearing loss (HL) and whose first spoken language is not English, the demands are especially problematic. Therefore, it is critical that educators prepare…

In this article, we review the skills that have been found to be related to good story comprehension in novice readers with normal hearing and describe the relative weight each plays. The relationship between effective story comprehension and lower level skills (such as syntactic awareness and vocabulary knowledge) is considered, and the casual…

Listening and spoken language (LSL) intervention and education have emerged as the preferred terms representing an intervention perspective that promotes "auditory oral" outcomes for many of today's children who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH), including those who are English learners. Practitioners (including speech-language…

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a foundational skill related to understanding the thoughts, beliefs, and desires of oneself and others. There are child factors that play an important role in the development of ToM (e.g., language and vocabulary) as well as environmental factors (e.g., conversations among family members and socioeconomic status). In this…

Disciplinary literacy is an increasingly popular focal area in adolescent literacy. In disciplinary literacy, the discourse features of specific knowledge domains (e.g., literature, history, science, and math) assume major importance in understanding and constructing meaning in each discipline. Because language plays a significant role in…

Background and Design: In recent years, evidence has emerged that suggests specific language impairment (SLI) does not exclusively affect linguistic skill. Studies have revealed memory difficulties, including those measured using nonverbal tasks. However, there has been relatively little research into the nature of the verbal/nonverbal boundaries…

Methods of measuring speech intelligibility in hearing impaired students are reviewed; factors affecting speech intelligibility, such as segmental speech production and listener experience are considered; and implications for clinical management are noted. (CL)

This article presents an interview with Dr. Sylvia O. Richardson, a pediatrician, speech-language pathologist, researcher, scholar, teacher, and clinician, who has been involved in the field of language-learning disabilities for many years. Widely-published in the areas of language disorders and dyslexia, and a former President of the American…