This study addressed visual word recognition in deaf bilinguals who are proficient in German Sign Language (DGS) and German. The study specifically investigated whether DGS signs are activated during a monolingual German word recognition task despite the lack of similarity in German orthographic representations and DGS phonological representations. Deaf DGS–German bilinguals saw pairs of German words and decided whether the words were semantically related. Half of the experimental items had phonologically related translation equivalents in DGS. Participants were slower to reject semantically unrelated word pairs when the translation equivalents were phonologically related in DGS than when the DGS translations were phonologically unrelated. However, this was not the case in Turkish–German hearing bilinguals who do not have sign language knowledge. The results indicate that lexical representations are associated cross-linguistically in the bilingual lexicon irrespective of their orthographic or phonological form. Implications of these results for reading development in deaf German bilinguals are discussed.

We examined recalled narratives of boys with fragile X syndrome with autism spectrum disorder (FXS-ASD; N = 28) and without ASD (FXS-O; N = 29), and compared them to those of boys with Down syndrome (N = 33) and typically developing (TD) boys (N = 39). Narratives were scored for mentions of macrostructural story grammar elements (introduction, relationship, initiating events, internal response, attempts/actions, and ending). We found that narrative recall is predicted by short-term memory and nonverbal mental age levels in almost all groups (except TD), but not by expressive syntax or caregiver education. After adjusting for these covariates, there were no differences between the three groups with intellectual disability. The FXS-ASD group, however, had significantly poorer performance than the TD group on the overall story grammar score, and both the FXS-O and FXS-ASD groups had lower attempts/actions scores than the TD group. We conclude that some form of narrative impairment may be associated with FXS, that this impairment may be shared by other forms of intellectual disability, and that the presence of ASD has a significantly detrimental effect on narrative recall.

This study investigated the recognition of Swedish inflected nouns in two participant groups. Both groups were Finnish-speaking late learners of Swedish, but the groups differed in regard to their Swedish language proficiency. In a visual lexical decision task, inflected Swedish nouns from three frequency ranges were contrasted with corresponding monomorphemic nouns. The reaction times and error rates suggested morphological decomposition for low-frequency inflected words. Yet, both medium- and high-frequency inflected words appeared to possess full-form representations. Despite an overall advantage for the more proficient participants, this pattern was present in both groups. The results indicate that even late exposure to a language can yield such input representations for morphologically complex words that are typical of native speakers.

In an experiment based on the competition model, 12 native Japanese speakers (J1 group) and 12 native English speakers studying Japanese (JFL group) were requested to report sentence subjects after listening to Japanese word strings which consisted of one verb and two nouns each. Similarly, 12 native English speakers (E1 group) and 12 native Japanese speakers studying English (EFL group) reported the sentence subjects of English word strings. In each word string, syntactic (word order) cues and lexical-semantic (animacy/inanimacy) cues converged or diverged as to the assignment of the sentence subjects. The results show that JFL-Ss (experimental subjects) closely approximated the response patterns of J1-Ss, while EFL-Ss showed evidence of transfer from their first language, Japanese. The results are consistent with the developmental precedence of a meaning-based comprehension strategy over a grammar-based one.

Linguistic analysis claims that verb agreement is composed of distinct phi-features such as person and number, but are these different phi-features processed distinctly or similarly? We used a sentence grammaticality task to explore the electrophysiological responses of Basque speakers when processing subject–verb person and number phi-feature agreement violations. We generated grammatical structures (grammatical control) and ungrammatical structures in which the verb disagreed with the subject in person (person violation), in number (number violation), or in both person and number features (person+number violation). Behavioral data revealed that, overall, participants were faster and more accurate detecting person and person+number violations than violations involving only number. Event-related potential responses revealed a N400–P600 pattern for all violation types. Person and person+number violations elicited larger P600 effects than number violations. These findings reveal different costs related to the processing of person and number phi-feature agreement and indicate that these features are distinct components of agreement computation.

An African Grey parrot, Alex, who had learned to use English speech in studies on referential interspecies communication and animal cognition, produced English monologues in both the presence and absence of human receivers. This study examines one component of Alex’s monologue behavior, private speech, while he was being taught new vocalizations. His private speech during those time periods included a small percentage of novel utterances, not yet used in the presence of his caretakers, that were phonologically related to, but not exact reproductions of, the new vocalizations. His monologues also contained utterances that were part of the general daily routine as well as the specific training paradigm, but rarely included verbatim reproductions of the training scenario. Alex’s behaviors were comparable to those of children in the early stages of language acquisition. Because monologue behavior has been characterized as a form of practice that facilitates human language development, the data are discussed in terms of the possible functions of monologues during Alex’s acquisition of novel vocalizations.

Children with specific reading disability fail to understand some complex spoken sentences as well as good readers. This investigation sought to identify the source of poor readers' comprehension difficulties. Second-grade good and poor readers were tested on spoken sentences with restrictive relative clauses in two experiments designed to minimize demands on working memory. The methodological innovations resulted in a high level of performance by both reader groups, demonstrating knowledge of relative clause structure. The poor readers' performance closely paralleled that of the good readers both in pattern of errors and in awareness of the pragmatic aspects of relative clauses. The findings suggest that limitations in processing account for comprehension difficulties displayed by some poor readers in previous investigations.

Following an extensive overview of the subject, this study explores the relationships between second-language (L2) explicit/implicit knowledge sources, embedded in the declarative/procedural memory systems, and L2 working memory (WM) capacity. It further examines the relationships between L2 reading comprehension and L2 WM capacity as well as those between L2 reading comprehension and L2 explicit/implicit knowledge sources. Participants were late adult learners of English as an L2, with a relatively advanced level of English proficiency. They completed tests measuring their WM capacity, explicit knowledge, implicit knowledge, and L2 reading comprehension. Correlation analysis revealed significant relationships between L2 WM capacity and both explicit and implicit L2 knowledge. Exploratory factor analysis showed that explicit knowledge, WM capacity, and L2 reading comprehension loaded on a single factor whereas implicit L2 knowledge formed an independent factor with no relationship to L2 reading. The results suggest that L2 WM is able to manipulate and store both explicit and implicit L2 input through controlled and automatic processes. They also suggest that L2 explicit knowledge, connected with the control processes of the declarative system's lexical/semantic features, and L2 WM, reflecting attentional resource capacity/allocation associated with control processes, play an important role in L2 reading comprehension.

The objectives of this study are (a) to determine if native speakers of Canadian French at different English proficiencies can use primary stress for recognizing English words and (b) to specify how the second language (L2) learners' (surface-level) knowledge of L2 stress placement influences their use of primary stress in L2 word recognition. Two experiments were conducted: a cross-modal word-identification task investigating (a) and a vocabulary production task investigating (b). The results show that several L2 learners can use primary stress for recognizing English words, but only the L2 learners with targetlike knowledge of stress placement can do so. The results also indicate that knowing where primary stress falls in English words is not sufficient for L2 learners to be able to use stress for L2 lexical access. This suggests that the problem that L2 word stress poses for many native speakers of (Canadian) French is at the level of lexical processing.

Dual-system models suggest that English past tense morphology involves two processing routes: rule application for regular verbs and memory retrieval for irregular verbs. In second language (L2) processing research, Ullman suggested that both verb types are retrieved from memory, but more recently Clahsen and Felser and Ullman argued that past tense rule application can be automatized with experience by L2 learners. To address this controversy, we tested highly proficient Greek–English learners with naturalistic or classroom L2 exposure compared to native English speakers in a self-paced reading task involving past tense forms embedded in plausible sentences. Our results suggest that, irrespective to the type of exposure, proficient L2 learners of extended L2 exposure apply rule-based processing.

Some previous studies have shown that the availability of orthographic information leads to positive effects for second language (L2) phonology, while others document negative effects. In this paper, we examine the role of orthography on novel spoken-word learning by comparing word pairs that differed in most or all of their segments (nonminimal pairs) and those that only differed in one phoneme (minimal pairs) that was considered easy or difficult to discriminate. We tested the performance of learners whose native languages have transparent orthographies as well as learners with opaque orthographies. Our findings show that regardless of linguistic background and native orthographic system, availability of orthographic information during word learning did not have an effect on nonminimal pairs or perceptually easy minimal pairs. However, it had a positive effect on two minimal pairs that had the highest accuracy among the seven perceptually difficult ones, indicating that orthography only helped contrasts that were relatively easy to discriminate. The implications of these findings for L2 teaching and for future directions within L2 phonology are discussed.

This article reports on a longitudinal examination of the relationship between productive phonological ability and phonological awareness in children under 6 years of age. This study followed 45 subjects with variant productive phonology levels from the mean age of 3;6 to 6;0. The Khan-Lewis Phonological Analysis (KLPA) (Khan & Lewis, 1976), which ranks children from 0 to 4 on phonological process usage, was given at 6-month intervals, along with two measures of phonological awareness. Logit analysis showed that children with poor productive phonology, as measured by process usage, had a lower probability of meeting criterion on both of the phonological awareness measures. Further, a change in KLPA rank from poor to good speech predicted significant exponential increases in the probability of success on the two dependent variables. We concluded that, as a child matures in productive phonology, accompanying exponential growth in phonological awareness occurs.

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) often show more limited use of grammatical morphology than younger, normally developing children matched according to mean length of utterance (MLU). However, within groups of children with SLI, individual differences are seen in grammatical morpheme use. In this study, we examined the role of weak syllable use in explaining some of these differences. Employing two different languages – English and Italian - children with SLI were placed into pairs. The children in each pair showed similar MLUs; however, one member of the pair showed a greater use of particular function words. In each of the pairs examined in both languages, the children with the greater use of function words also showed a greater use of weak syllables that did not immediately follow strong syllables. The weak syllable productions of children showing a more limited use of function words in each pair seemed to be dependent on a strong syllable-weak syllable production sequence. This sequence appeared to be operative across several prosodic levels, as defined within the framework of prosodic phonology. Because weak syllables that follow strong syllables usually have longer durations than those that precede strong syllables, the findings might have a perceptual basis. However, the results raise the possibility that limitations in prosody can restrict the degree of grammatical morpheme use by children with SLI.

Sight word learning and memory were studied to clarify how early during development readers process visual letter patterns that are not dictated by phonology, and whether their word learning is influenced by the legality of letter patterns. Forty kindergartners and first graders were taught to read 12 words containing either single consonants (e.g., FAN) or doubled consonants in initial illegal or final legal positions (e.g., RRUG or JETT). Children required fewer trials to learn to read legally spelled words with single or doubled consonants than illegally spelled words containing initial doublets. On a spelling posttest, children recalled single consonants somewhat better than final doublets, and final doublets much better than initial illegal doublets. More advanced beginning readers tended to regularize illegal initial doublets by doubling the final rather than initial consonants when they wrote these words. Poorer learning and memory for initial doublets occurred despite the salience of their position in words. Findings indicate that beginning readers use orthographic patterns to read and remember words earlier than predicted by phase theory, but their memory is constrained by their knowledge of written word structure.

The speech of 9 middle-class black, 9 middle-class white, 9 working-class black, and 9 workingclass white parents to their preschool children was examined during picture identification, free play, and a meal. The groups were found to be similar in the level and form of parental labeling. The groups differed in the information the parents supplied about objects in the various settings, in the parent's direction of the child's behavior, and in parental sensitivity to the child's age. Within the working-class groups, the frequency of vernacular features in the parents' speech correlated with the quality of information they provided.

This Study investigated whether the pseudoword repetition difference between poor and normal readers could be explained by differences in memory for verbal materials or in familiarity with the composition of verbal materials. Dutch second graders and poor readers scoring in the same range on a word-reading test repeated pseudowords that varied in length and wordlikeness. The pseudoword repetition deficit of poor readers reported in the literature was replicated. Although the repetition scores were influenced by pseudoword length and wordlikeness, no interaction with reader group was found, thus indicating that neither variable represented a causal factor in the poor readers' repetition deficit. Statistical correction for reader group differences on a phoneme detection task and an auditory discrimination task made the pseudoword repetition difference disappear. We conclude that the basic problem is unlikely to be with subvocal rehearsal, and that the cause of the repetition deficit is already operative in early, perceptual stages of processing.

Phonetic skills and vocabulary size were investigated in 37 toddlers (24 to 31 months) identified with specific expressive language impairment and 20 comparison toddlers matched on age, SES, and nonverbal ability. The use of consonants was highly consistent across two contexts: 20 minutes of structured testing and 5 minutes of free play. The comparison children produced almost triple the number of consonant types and five times as many consonant tokens as the late talkers. However, the most frequently present consonants were similar across groups, indicating delayed rather than deviant phonetic development in the late talkers. The late talkers used a much higher proportion of their consonants in initial position than did the normally developing toddlers. Consonant types and tokens were significantly related to reported vocabulary size on Rescorla's (1989) Language Development Survey. No significant predictive relationship was found between either phonetic repertoire or vocabulary size at intake and age 3 language outcome. However, age 3 MLU and IPSyn scores were significantly predicted by age-normed severity of expressive delay at intake (Reynell Expressive z score), with more delayed children showing poorer outcomes.

Research on the bilingual development of refugee children is limited, despite this group having distinct characteristics and migration experiences that could impact language development. This study examined the role of language environment factors, alongside age and cognitive factors, in shaping the Arabic as a first/heritage language and English as a second language of recently arrived Syrian refugee children in Canada (N = 133; mean age = 9 years old; mean family residency = 23 months). We found that Arabic was the primary home language with some English use among siblings. Children did not engage frequently in language-rich activities in either language, especially not literacy activities in Arabic. Parent education levels were low: most had primary school only. Hierarchical regression models revealed that stronger nonverbal reasoning skills, more exposure to English at school, more sibling interaction in English, more frequent engagement in language-rich activities in English, and higher maternal and paternal education were associated with larger English vocabularies and greater accuracy with verb morphology. Arabic vocabulary and morphological abilities were predicted by older age (i.e., more first/heritage language exposure), stronger nonverbal reasoning skills and maternal education. We conclude that proximal environment factors, like language use at home and richness, accounted for more variance in the second language than the first/heritage language, but parent factors accounted for variance in both languages.

Recently researchers have become increasingly interested in the influence of orthographic forms on second language (L2) phonology. Orthographic forms (or spellings) represent the sounds and words of a language in writing. L2 learners, in particular those in instructed settings, are simultaneously exposed to the orthographic forms and the phonological forms of the target language. Recent investigations have indicated that orthographic input can affect learners’ phonological development and word learning in their second language in various ways. The availability of L2 orthographic forms in the input to L2 learners can facilitate speech production, perception, and/or word form learning (Escudero, Hayes-Harb, & Mitterer, 2008; Showalter & Hayes-Harb, 2013). It can hinder targetlike acquisition (Bassetti, 2007; Hayes-Harb, Nicol, & Barker, 2010), or it can have mixed effects or no effect at all (Escudero & Wanrooij, 2010; Simon, Chamblessb, & Alvesc, 2010).

This study examined the extent to which explicit instruction about first language (L1) and second language (L2) processing routines improved the accuracy, speed, and automaticity of learners’ responses during sentence interpretation practice. Fifty-three English-speaking learners of L2 French were assigned to one of the following treatments: (a) a “core” treatment consisting of L2 explicit information (EI) with L2 interpretation practice (L2-only group); (b) the same L2 core+L1 practice with L1 EI (L2+L1 group); or (c) the same L2 core+L1 practice but without L1 EI (L2+L1prac group). Findings indicated that increasing amounts of practice led to more accurate and faster performance only for learners who received L1 EI (L2+L1 group). Coefficient of variation analyses (Segalowitz & Segalowitz, 1993) indicated knowledge restructuring early on that appeared to lead to gradual automatization over time (Solovyeva & DeKeyser, 2017; Suzuki, 2017). Our findings that EI and practice about L1 processing routines benefited the accuracy, speed, and automaticity of L2 performance have major implications for theories of L2 learning, the role of L1 EI in L2 grammar learning, and L2 pedagogy.