The temporal organization of the late babbling of a French child during the pivotal period between babbling and the production of meaningful utterances is studied. Two points are analysed: the segmental timing in terms of syllabic durations and the durations of sequences according to their intonational contours. Articulation rate in late babbling is fairly rapid and stable and does not vary with length of sequences. However, at the end of the period studied, longer durations are found for bi- and tri-syllabic sequences. This lengthening can be seen to reflect changes in the child's target programming and the constraints on co-articulation that it implies. Additional changes occur also as a function of intonational contours.

Three experiments are reported which explored the conditions under which intra-word phonological variability occurs. Using an unsolicited imitation task, evidence of variability was obtained for words containing two or more phonological characteristics (consonants, word shapes) that were unstable in the child's speech, and for words containing both unstable characteristics and characteristics the child had not shown any evidence of producing with accuracy. Intra-word variability was most likely to occur when more than one aspect was in a state of instability or when one aspect was unstable and another was non-acquired. Words containing two phonological aspects not yet acquired by the child seemed to have little influence on variability. The findings indicate that variability can be attributed to (1) the presence of optional simplification processes, (2) the presence of more than one process applicable to a specific aspect of the word, (3) a competition between two aspects of the word for accurate surface realization, and/or (4) a competition between consonant approximation and word shape approximation.

The interpretation of French statements involving the verbs savoir (‘to know’) and croire (‘to think’) was studied in a group of children aged from 4; 1 to 1. The experiment consisted in asking subjects to attribute four sentences (‘I know that P’, ‘I know that not-P’, ‘I do not know if P’, ‘I think that P’) to fictitious speakers (dolls placed in various situations of knowledge). Results enable us to infer levels of understanding, to locate the main difficulties in the processing of each statement, and to bring out recurrent confusions between the expressions. These results are interpreted as the expression of the processes contributing to the elaboration of ‘modalization’ in the child.

We tracked the developmental influences of exposure to French on developing English phonological awareness, decoding and reading comprehension of English-speaking at-risk readers from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Teacher-nominated at-risk readers were matched with not-at-risk readers in French immersion and English language programs. Exposure to spoken French phonetic and syllabic forms and to written French orthographic and morphological forms by children attending French immersion programs was expected to promote phonological, decoding and reading comprehension achievement. Growth in all outcomes was found, with children in immersion experiencing higher final status in phonological awareness and more rapid growth and higher final status in decoding, using multilevel modeling. At-risk readers in French immersion experienced faster growth and higher final status in reading comprehension. Benefits to reading of exposure to an additional language are discussed in relation to cross-language transfer, phonological grain size and enhanced executive control processes.

The present study examines the perceptual, linguistic, and social cues that were associated with preschoolers’ (4;11) growth in word-learning during shared book-reading and guided play activities. Small groups of three preschoolers (n = 30) and one adult were video-recorded during an intervention study in which new vocabulary words were explicitly taught. Adult use of taught words was coded for perceptual and linguistic cues and type of social interaction. Hearing taught words used in the book text and learning information about words’ meanings during play was positively associated with growth in word-learning. Adult use of words in responsive, or child-initiated, interactions was positively associated with word-learning growth in both book-reading and play, while adult-initiated use of words was negatively associated with word-learning growth in both settings.

Previous tasks have shown that preschool and early elementary school-children typically have trouble learning and identifying homonyms (Peters & Zaidel, 1980; Mazzocco, 1989). It is possible that a one-to-one mapping assumption or a lack of metalinguistic skills makes homonym learning and identification particularly difficult. In three experiments we examined a total of 60 three-year-olds' ability to pick out homonym pairs, and the extent to which they realize that although homonyms share a common label, they represent two different categories. In Experiment 1 subjects were asked to identify homonym pairs. In Experiment 2, homonym pairs and non-homonym pairs were labelled, then children were asked whether the pairs had the same name, and whether they were the same kind of thing. In Experiment 3 children were shown one-half of each of several homonym and non-homonym pairs, then asked to identify a name match and a category match from a set of pictures. From these experiments we conclude that children have the metalinguistic skills necessary to identify homonym pairs; moreover, they realized that homonyms represent two different categories. Finally, if children have a one-to-one mapping assumption, it is not strong enough to prevent them from acquiring homonyms.

The aim of this longitudinal study, carried out on a sample of Slovenian-speaking toddlers, was to analyze developmental changes and stability in early vocabulary development; to establish relations between toddler's vocabulary and grammar; and to analyze the effects of parental education and the frequency of shared reading on toddlers' vocabulary and grammar. The sample included fifty-one toddlers, aged 1;4 at the time of the first, and 2;7 at the time of the last, assessment. Toddlers' vocabulary and grammar were assessed six times during a 15-month period using the Slovenian adaptation of the CDI. Our findings suggest great individual differences in both size and rate of toddlers' vocabulary development. Toddlers' vocabulary scores remained relatively stable across a 3-month period. Early vocabulary at 1;7 predicted vocabulary, sentence complexity, and mean length of utterance (MLU) at 2;7, while the frequency of shared reading mediated the effect of parental education on toddlers' vocabulary and grammar at 2;7.

Navajo and Quechua, both languages with a highly complex morphology, provide intriguing insights into the acquisition of inflectional systems. The development of the verb in the two languages is especially interesting, since the morphology encodes diverse grammatical notions, with the complex verb often constituting the entire sentence. While the verb complex in Navajo is stem-final, with prefixes appended to the stem in a rigid sequence, Quechua verbs are assembled entirely through suffixation, with some variation in affix ordering.

We explore issues relevant to the acquisition of verb morphology by children learning Navajo and Quechua as their first language. Our study presents naturalistic speech samples produced by five Navajo children, aged 1;1 to 4;7, and by four Quechua-speaking children, aged 2;0 to 3;5. We centre our analysis on the role of phonological criteria in segmentation of verb stems and affixes, the production of amalgams, the problem of homophony, and the significance of distributional learning and semantic criteria in the development of the verb template. The phenomena observed in our data are discussed in light of several proposals, especially those of Peters, Pinker, Slobin, and Hyams.

Stoel-Gammon & Cooper (1984) have recently presented phonological analyses in this journal of three children acquiring English. Their general conclusion is that the three children are each following their own unique pattern of acquisition. This paper is a response to that conclusion. We first point out that such research needs to distinguish different possible causes of variation. We then go on to criticize the method of analysis they used, arguing that it disposes the results towards individual variation. Next, we present an alternative analysis, using a different methodology, and show that the children's patterns of acquisition are actually relatively similar. Lastly, we conclude that both their and our results provide evidence for early phonological processing in opposition to the biological model presented in Locke (1983).

Ten children at mean ages of o; 11.3 and o; 15.3 and their monolingual German-speaking mothers were audio- and videotaped in their homes while having a meal with a spoon (ordinary situation) and while feeding a doll with a spoon (play situation). Sentences spoken by the mothers that were comparable in length and sentence type across situations were analysed acoustically. In both data-collection sessions, it was found that the mothers spoke with the same mean amplitude in the two situations but they used higher mean fundamental frequency when speaking during the play situation than during the ordinary situation. In the first data-collection session, when the infants did not yet use meaningful words or engage in pretend play, the mothers also used a wider pitch range in the play situation than in the ordinary situation. It is concluded that mothers use both pitch height and pitch range to introduce the preverbal infant to the difference between non-play and play situations, and they continue to use variations in pitch height to mark the same distinction after the children have become active participants in pretend play activities. Implications of the results are discussed in terms of possible longitudinal patterns associated with mothers' use of intonational key and register.

Perturbations to the speech articulators induced by frequently using an interfering object during infancy (i.e., pacifier) might shape children's language experience and the building of conceptual representations. Seventy-one typically developing third graders performed a semantic categorization task with abstract, concrete and emotional words. Children who used the pacifier for a more extended period were slower than the others. Moreover, overusing the pacifier increased response time of abstract words, whereas emotional and (above all) concrete words were less affected. Results support the view that abstract words are grounded both in perception-action and in linguistic experience.

The purposes of the present study was to develop a multiple-choice test of figurative language comprehension and to evaluate the development of such comprehension over a wide range of ages and children. To do this, samples of novel and frozen figures were selected from a corpus provided by elementary school children and then administered to 149 different children between 9 and 14 years. Results showed that the test produced was a reliable one, and one that produced meaningful developmental trends. In addition, differences were noted between the comprehension and production of novel and frozen figures of speech. These findings were discussed in terms of their methodological and developmental implications.

This study focuses on the mapping of events onto verb-argument structures in British Sign Language (BSL). The development of complex sentences in BSL is described in a group of 30 children, aged 3;2–12;0, using data from comprehension measures and elicited sentence production. The findings support two interpretations: firstly, in the mapping of concepts onto language, children acquiring BSL overgeneralize the use of argument structure related to perspective shifting;secondly, these overgeneralizations are predicted by the typological characteristics of the language and modality. Children under age 6;0, in attempting to produce sentences encoded through a perspective shift, begin by breaking down double-verb constructions (AB verbs) into components, producing only the part of the verb phrase which describes the perspective of the patient. There is also a prolonged period of development of non-manual features, with the full structure not seen in its adult form until after 9;0. The errors in the use of AB verbs and the subsequent protracted development of correct usage are explained in terms of the conceptual–linguistic interface.

Three experiments investigated the ability of eight-year old children with poor language comprehension to produce past tense forms of verbs. Twenty children selected as poor comprehenders were compared to 20 age-matched control children. Although the poor comprehenders performed less well than controls on a range of tasks considered to tap verbal-semantic abilities, the two groups showed equivalent phonological skills. Poor comprehenders performed as well as control children when asked to inflect novel verbs and regular verbs. In contrast, poor comprehenders were less skilled than controls at inflecting both high frequency and low frequency irregular verbs. Although the predominant error pattern for all children was to over-regularize, this was most marked in the poor comprehenders; control children were more likely to produce errors that contained knowledge of the irregular form than poor comprehenders. In addition, the ability to inflect irregular verbs was related to individual differences in verbal-semantic skills. These findings are discussed within a framework in which verb inflection is related to underlying language skills in both the phonological and semantic domains.

The aim of this study was to determine if mothers display identifiably different communicative styles in their interaction with their normally developing two- to five-year-old children. In order to investigate this issue an extensive coding system was developed, which assessed the structural organization and the communicative function of the speech of 71 mothers as they interacted with their children. By means of factor analysis three maternal communicative styles were distinguished: non-intervening, explaining and directing. In the non-intervening style there is no direct pressure from the mother on the child to respond verbally. The explaining mother is primarily concerned with providing information to her child in a way that gives the child little opportunity to take the speaking turn. The directing mother is mainly engaged in directing the child's behaviour by means of verbal control. The internal consistency of the three communicative styles appeared to be both satisfactory and related to relevant child and mother features.

Four- and five-year-old children took part in an elicited familiar and novel Lithuanian noun production task to test predictions of input-based accounts of the acquisition of inflectional morphology. Two major findings emerged. First, as predicted by input-based accounts, correct production rates were correlated with the input frequency of the target form, and with the phonological neighbourhood density of the noun. Second, the error patterns were not compatible with the systematic substitution of target forms by either (a) the most frequent form of that noun or (b) a single morphosyntactic default form, as might be predicted by naive versions of a constructivist and generativist account, respectively. Rather, most errors reflected near-miss substitutions of singular for plural, masculine for feminine, or nominative/accusative for a less frequent case. Together, these findings provide support for an input-based approach to morphological acquisition, but are not adequately explained by any single account in its current form.

Past research suggests that bilingualism positively affects children's performance in false belief tasks. However, researchers have yet to fully explore factors that are related to better performance in these tasks within bilingual groups. The current study includes an assessment of proficiency in both languages (which was lacking in past work) and investigates the relationship between proficiency and performance in a variety of mental state tasks (not just false belief). Furthermore, it explores whether the relationship between language proficiency and performance in mental state tasks differs between bilingual and monolingual groups. Twenty-six Spanish–English bilingual and twenty-six English monolingual preschool-age children completed seven mental state tasks. Findings provide evidence that high proficiency in English is related to better performance in mental state tasks for monolinguals. In contrast, high proficiency in both English and Spanish is related to better performance in mental state tasks for bilinguals.

Menn has suggested that most early phonological rules have the effect of reducing the variety of the child's phonetic output forms. This proposal is compatible with the Interactionist–Discovery (I–D) theory of phonological acquisition. This paper presents one child's unique phonological rule which increases output variety and yet still yields a mismatch with the adult form. Evidence is presented which indicates that the rule was a stable and productive part of the child's phonology and that it was both phonetically and phonologically motivated. It is argued that an addition to the early strategies described by Menn is needed to account, specifically, for the discovery of this unique rule and, generally, for later stages of phonological development.

Rowland & Pine (2000) present an analysis of the development of subject–auxiliary inversion in wh-questions in the speech of Adam from the Brown corpus. They show that there is an uninversion period in which the child fails to invert the subject and auxiliary in wh-questions, and they argue that this is a function of the frequency of wh-word+auxiliary collocations in the input: the more frequent a particular collocation is in the input, the more likely it is to be inverted in the child's speech. In this note an alternative analysis is proposed: the initial position of the tensed auxiliary signals interrogative illocutionary force, and the auxiliaries which are most reliably inverted are those that are overtly tensed morphologically. This analysis not only accounts for Rowland & Pine's data but also extends to inversion in yes–no questions. The analysis predicts three different patterns for the development of inversion in both types of questions, and it is shown that all three are attested.