The proposals that (a) nonword repetition and word learning both rely on phonological storage and (b) both are multiply determined are two of the major foci of Gathercole's (2006) Keynote Article, which marshals considerable evidence in support of each. In my view, the importance of these proposals cannot be overstated: these two notions go to the heart of the relationship between nonword repetition and word learning. Indeed, they figure prominently in the approach that my colleagues and I have taken to studying that relationship (e.g., Gupta, 2006; Gupta, Lipinski, Abbs, & Lin, 2005; Gupta & MacWhinney, 1997). An important aspect of our approach has been the attempt to construct a computational model that can simulate performance in a nonword repetition task and in a word learning task, the rationale being that a computational model that achieved this would constitute a proposal about the processing mechanisms that may underlie the relationship. In this Commentary, I describe how our computational work offers a concrete way of thinking about how nonword repetition and word learning may rely on phonological storage, and about how these abilities may be multiply determined. Such computational work is, I suggest, a valuable tool in further investigating the important relationship that has been revealed by Gathercole's influential work, and that is analyzed in the Keynote Article.

The present study investigated the contribution of cognitive, linguistic, and contextual factors to the narrative production of Norwegian second language learners. We assessed cognitive ability and first and second language proficiency in 66 kindergarten children with Urdu/Punjabi as their first language. Number of children's books in the home and time spent in kindergarten were treated as contextual factors. Oral narration was assessed in Grade 1. A series of fixed-order hierarchical regression analyses displayed a complex relationship among cognitive, linguistic, and contextual factors and various facets of narrative production of young second language learners; nonverbal ability and books in the home predicted the mastering of story (macro)structure, while linguistic (vocabulary and grammar) and both contextual variables predicted microaspects of narrative proficiency. The results suggest that combining home book reading practices, kindergarten attendance, and second language interventions might improve language minority children's narrative production and chances of school success.

Psycholinguistic research on pragmatics in the neurotypical population has increasingly framed pragmatic competence and related cognitive skills in terms of individual differences, co-constructed discourse, and meaning negotiation. However, research on pragmatics in the Autism Spectrum has risen from a wide and biased view of autistic communication as fundamentally compromised and autistic pragmatic abilities as impaired. Mostly due to the impactful theory of a deficit in Theory of Mind, early research on autistic communication presumed a unitary pragmatic impairment, only to find that several pragmatic abilities seem to be “preserved.” However, the interpretation of these findings usually takes an ableist turn, as most studies subsequently suggest that surface-level performance should not be interpreted as competence, but rather as a result of “compensatory” strategies. The raising number of contributions from autistic academics and participatory research enriched the field with new perspectives focusing on differences rather than impairments and drawing hypotheses on communication difficulties between neurotypes rather than within a specific neurotype. However, such contributions are hardly ever cited in the most prominent works. In conclusion, the field would benefit from a higher level of citation of autistic-led research and from an epistemological perspective shift within the mostly neurotypical academic community.

It is a widely held belief that women talk more than men; but experimental evidence has suggested that this belief is mistaken. The present study investigated whether listener bias contributes to this mistake. Dialogues were recorded in mixed-sex and single-sex versions, and male and female listeners judged the proportions of talk contributed to the dialogues by each participant. Female contributions to mixed-sex dialogues were rated as greater than male contributions by both male and female listeners. Female contributions were more likely to be overestimated when they were speaking a dialogue part perceived as probably female than when they were speaking a dialogue part perceived as probably male. It is suggested that the misestimates are due to a complex of factors that may involve both perceptual effects such as misjudgment of rates of speech and sociological effects such as attitudes to social roles and perception of power relations.

The contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension in Hebrew was tested in 100 second- and third-grade students on three types of morphology: inflections, derivations, and construct formation, controlling for vocabulary knowledge. Third graders performed better than second graders on inflectional and construct formation awareness, but only derivations and construct formation predicted success in reading comprehension. Significant differences in reading comprehension but not in orthographic word recognition and phonological decoding were found between students with low and high morphological awareness. The results highlight the importance of examining the unique contribution of different components of morphological awareness to reading comprehension.

The present study examines whether literacy or phonological impairment affects use of morphological spelling constancy, the principle that morphemes are spelled consistently across words. Children with dyslexia or otitis media (OM) were compared to chronological-age matched children and reading-ability matched children. Monomorphemic and polymorphemic nonwords were spelled in a sentence-completion dictation task. Use of root and suffix morphemes increased with age in typical development, particularly derivational morphemes. Dyslexic children generally used morphological strategies less than their chronological-age matched peers but to a similar extent as reading-ability matched peers. OM children showed a specific weakness in using inflectional suffixes. The results suggest different causes for the spelling difficulties in each case: dyslexic children had difficulties in generalizing more complex morphological relationships, while the OM children's difficulties had a phonological/perceptual basis.

Year 2 findings are reported from a longitudinal, experimental-control study involving 31 Spanish-speaking preschoolers (aged 38–48 months) randomly assigned to two Head Start classrooms. In Year 1, classrooms differed only in the language of instruction, with teachers using only Spanish in one classroom and only English in the other. In Year 2, an experimental transitional bilingual education (TBE) model was implemented, with English being gradually introduced in the TBE classroom until a ratio of 30:70 English-to-Spanish was achieved and Spanish being gradually introduced in the predominantly English (PE) classroom until a ratio of 70:30 English-to-Spanish was achieved. Year 2 results were consistent with Year 1, with the TBE classroom exceeding the PE classroom on all Spanish measures of language and literacy development and no significant differences favoring the PE classroom. Results also indicated that Year 2 trajectories were conditional on first-year effects, suggesting that sustained growth in dual language learner's early literacy may depend on early intervention among 3-year-old preschoolers.

This study examined to what extent advanced and beginning readers, including dyslexic readers of Dutch, make use of morphological access units in the reading of polymorphemic words. Therefore, experiments were carried out in which the role of singular root form frequency in reading plural word forms was investigated in a lexical decision task with both adults and children. Twenty-three adult readers, 37 8-year-old children from Grade 3, 43 11-year-old children from Grade 6, and 33 11-year-old dyslexic readers were presented with a lexical decision task in which we contrasted plural word forms with a high versus low frequency of the singular root form. For the adults, it was found that the accuracy and speed of lexical decision is determined by the surface frequency of the plural word form. The frequency of the constituent root form played a role as well, but in the low-frequency plural words only. Furthermore, a strong developmental effect regarding the accuracy and speed of reading plural word forms was found. An effect of plural word form frequency on word identification was evidenced in all groups. The singular root form frequency also had an impact of the reading of the plural word forms. In the normal reading and dyslexic children, plurals with a high-frequency singular root form were read more accurately and faster than plurals with a low singular root frequency. It can be concluded that constituent morphemes have an impact on the reading of polymorphemic words. The results can be explained in the light of a word experience model leaving room for morphological constituency to play a role in the lexical access of complex words as a function of reading skill and experience and word and morpheme frequency.

This study investigates the extent to which internal and contextual factors moderate the linguistic interdependence between receptive vocabulary skills in emergent bilingual children. Such factors are frequently related to first (L1) and second language (L2) skills, but few studies have examined their concurrent influence on the cross-language relationship, or have linked the results to the two main explanatory models for interdependence: common underlying proficiency or individual differences. Using a cross-sectional correlational design, concept comprehension was bilingually assessed in 154 children of Turkish background (aged 4 to 6), attending Flemish preschool. Regression analyses revealed that Turkish L1 vocabulary size significantly predicted Dutch L2 vocabulary size, which is in line with interdependence theories. Age, preschool grade, and L2 use at home positively predicted L2 vocabulary. Newly arrived immigrant status and maternal education (partly) predicted L2 vocabulary negatively, the latter especially in 3rd preschool grade. Concerning moderation, indications were found for weakening interdependence for high L2 use at home (3rd preschool grade) and newly arrived immigrant status. Overall, our findings implicate that interdependence in emergent bilinguals’ vocabulary depends on the examined factors to a limited degree only. Finally, our data point to the individual differences model, rather than the common underlying proficiency model of linguistic interdependence.

The lexical restructuring model (LRM; Metsala & Walley, 1998) can be used to explain the development of phonological awareness (PA). According to LRM, as children's vocabularies increase, children develop a more refined lexical representation of the sounds comprising those words, and in turn children become more sensitive to the detection of specific phonemes. LRM identifies several lexical characteristics of words that influence lexical restructuring: age of acquisition (AoA), word frequency, neighborhood density, and phonotactic probability. In this study, the effects of these lexical characteristics on children's performance on PA tasks were evaluated, as well as moderation of these effects by children's oral language skills and ages, in two independent samples of preschool children who completed measures of PA and oral language. For both samples, AoA and word frequency were negatively related to PA skills, and phonotactic probability was positively related to PA skills. Children's ages and oral language skills were positive predictors of PA skills, and children's ages moderated the relations between AoA and PA skills for children in Sample 2. Children's oral language skills moderated the relations between AoA and PA skills for children in Sample 1. Implications are discussed.

We explored the acquisition of relative clauses in Mandarin Chinese, a subject–verb–object language with head-final relatives. One hundred and twenty-five children (aged 3 years to 8 years, 11 months) and 20 adults participated in an elicitation task. The results revealed a subject advantage at all ages and a large production of relative clauses with resumptive noun phrases (NPs) across age groups. To further explore the latter finding, we carried out a grammaticality judgment study with 80 adults. We found that relative clauses with resumptive NPs are acceptable in the spoken language for many adult native speakers of Mandarin. This result is at odds with Chinese prescriptive grammar. We propose an analysis of the subject advantage based on the structure intervention expressed as relativized minimality and argue that resumptive NPs are an option in Mandarin relative clauses.

This article reports a longitudinal study of developing communication in two profoundly deaf preschool boys growing up in oral deaf families who use oral English as their primary language. The children were videotaped in play interactions with their profoundly deaf mothers. The nature of the gestural communication used by the dyads is the focus of interest in this article. In contrast to hearing mothers of deaf children, the two mothers used extensive gestures to accompany their speech, including rich and varied gesture sequences. The children also developed a repertoire of gestures that, in most respects, mirrored the properties of the input gesture they received. The results provide a window on the natural ontogenesis of a compensatory gestural system.

Private speech (PS) – or speech for the self – was studied in preschool-age children to determine how widely and with what characteristics it occurs when examined in the familiar home setting. Activities were selected that required several steps and that were intended to engage working memory or longer term recall. Both quantitative (numbers of words and utterances produced) and qualitative (utterance type) analyses were conducted on the children's PS. Across the age range from 4 ½ to 6 years, younger children had higher frequencies of PS than older children, which fits the predictions made by Vygotsky (1958/1962, 1978). Increased information loads resulted in more PS, indicating a relation between PS and task difficulty; however, total quantities of PS were not correlated with degree of task success. Self-regulatory utterances accounted for 89% of the PS produced; the majority of these utterances involved repetitions of the instructions that appeared to enhance recall, to help pace the children's activity, or to enable deliberation with respect to making choices. There was a strong age trend in which the amount of audible PS decreased with age. Qualitative differences across tasks are presented and considered in relation to how PS functions for different activities and possibly achieves adaptive significance.

The validity of phoneme recognition as an indicator of phonemic awareness at kindergarten age is investigated. Six paper and pencil phonemic awareness (PA) tests, phoneme recognition among them, are administered groupwise to Dutch children a few months before the beginning of formal literacy education. Additional phonological tests and an early reading test are administered individually. Ten months later, children are tested again with PA and literacy tests. Structural equation modeling shows the relations among tests to correspond broadly with findings reported in the literature. The PA test scores are determined by one common factor, and the early PA factor influences later literacy through its influence on later PA skill. Phoneme segmentation has the highest loading on the PA factor, but phoneme recognition is its best paper and pencil representative. Unlike phoneme segmentation, phoneme recognition competence can develop in the absence of literacy skills. Phoneme recognition equals phoneme segmentation in sensitivity and specificity when predicting later literacy failure.

Previous studies have demonstrated a link between language behaviors and deception; however, questions remain about the role of specific linguistic cues, especially in real-life high-stakes lies. This study investigated use of the so-called filler, “um,” in externally verifiable truthful versus deceptive speech of a convicted murderer. The data revealed significantly fewer instances of “um” in deceptive speech. These results are in line with our recent study of “um” in laboratory elicited low-stakes lies. Rather than constituting a filled pause or speech disfluency, “um” may have a lexical status similar to other English words and may be under the strategic control of the speaker. In an attempt to successfully deceive, humans may alter their speech, perhaps in order to avoid certain language behaviors that they think might give them away.

This study investigates reading comprehension in adult deaf and hearing readers. Using correlational analysis and stepwise regression, we assess the contribution of English language variables (e.g., vocabulary comprehension, reading volume, and phonological awareness), cognitive variables (e.g., working memory (WM), nonverbal intelligence, and executive function), and language experience (e.g., language acquisition and orthographic experience) in predicting reading comprehension in deaf and hearing adult bilinguals (native American Sign Language (ASL) signers, non-native ASL signers, and Chinese–English bilinguals (CEB)), and monolingual (ML) controls. For all four groups, vocabulary knowledge was a strong contributor to reading comprehension. Monolingual English speakers and non-native deaf signers also showed contributions from WM and spoken language phonological awareness. In contrast, CEB showed contributions of lexical strategies in English reading comprehension. These cross-group comparisons demonstrate how the inclusion of multiple participant groups helps us to further refine our understanding of how language and sensory experiences influence reading comprehension.

Code-switching between Papiamento and Dutch was studied in bilingual parent–child reading sessions in Antillian migrant families (who were to some extent bilingual in Papiamento and Dutch) in the Netherlands. Mothers were asked to read three picture books to their child: one in Dutch, one in Papiamento, and one without text. The code-switching in the data is studied from three perspectives: its relation to bilingual competence, its structural properties, and the implications for language change through lexical borrowing. Our data confirmed the results of earlier studies, which found that intimate code-switching within the clause is characteristic of fluent bilinguals. In our study, this held in particular for knowledge of Papiamento. Structurally, the type of code-switching encountered was predominantly insertional (with Papiamento as the dominant language), thus conforming to the constraints proposed for this type of switching. The single Dutch words that were frequently inserted into Papiamento utterances by the mothers could easily be interpreted by the child as Papiarnento and are likely to become borrowings in the next generation. We conclude with some remarks about the functions of code-switching in our data.

Since the publication of Nelson's (1973) monograph, a number of studies have documented negative relationships between referential style and some form of maternal directiveness. However, the precise nature of these relationships is still far from clear. The present study represents an attempt to resolve this confusion by investigating the relationship between different measures of maternal directiveness and different measures of referential style in the same group of eight mother–infant dyads. A distinction is made, first, between attentional directiveness and behavioral directiveness, and, second, between referential vocabulary measures based on a fixed number of vocabulary items (i.e., 50 words) and measures taken at particular age points (in this case, 1;4). Correlational analysis of these different measures shows not only that attentional and behavioral directiveness are not significantly related, but also that they are differentially predictive of different measures of referential style. Attentional directiveness is significantly related to referential style at 1;4, but not to referential style at 50 words; behavioral directiveness is significantly related to referential style in the child's subsequent 50 words, but not to referential style at 1;4. These findings suggest that, although the attentional regulation hypothesis may be potentially useful in explaining differences in children's actual rate of vocabulary development, it may be less valuable as a means of explaining stylistic variation in early vocabulary composition. This conclusion underlines the need to distinguish relationships between mothers' interactional behavior and stylistic variation in their children's early language from more general effects of maternal behavior on children's overall rate of language development.

This study explored whether caregivers' gestures followed the discourse-pragmatic principle of information status of referents (given vs. new) and how their children responded to those gestures when identifying referents. Ten Chinese-speaking and eight English-speaking caregivers were videotaped while interacting spontaneously with their children. Their speech and gestures were coded for referential expressions. Our findings showed that the Chinese-speaking caregivers gestured more often than the English-speaking caregivers but both of the groups gestured more often when asking their children to identify the new referents than the given referents (e.g., pointed to a puzzle while asking “What is this”?). The children were also sensitive to the information status of referents and they relied on the gestures to identify the new referents (but not the given referents). Overall, gesture serves as a potential cue for referential identification in both the caregivers and their children.

First language learners can track word-referent co-occurrence information across situations and evaluate co-occurrence probabilities across situations to determine the best-of-fit mappings. However, cross-situational word learning can be difficult to foreign language learners, because in addition to aggregating information across situations, they have to build robust representations for foreign-sounding words. In Experiment 1, third-grade Mandarin-speaking children learned four English word-referent pairs in two conditions, varying in within-trial ambiguity. In one condition, information about word-referent association was determinable across trials but not within a trial. In the other, word-referent association within a trial was inferable. In Experiment 2, participants learned words in a condition where referential ambiguity across trials, though not within a trial, was reduced by successive presentation of certain word-referent pairs. The results revealed that participants learned more word-referent pairs than expected by chance. Reducing ambiguity within a trial facilitated word mapping and word retention (Experiment 1), but reducing ambiguity across trials did not (Experiment 2). Across two experiments, word mapping and retention performance was associated with phonological awareness, whether measured in children's first language or a foreign language, but not with digit span, suggesting that success in cross-situational word learning in a foreign language rests on specification of word forms.