Spelling development in the Spanish language

This study focused on spelling development in Spanish children from elementary grades. A sample of 1045 was selected from 2nd to 6th grade belonging to four schools in Tenerife Island with an age range between 7 and 12 years old (M = 113.8, SD = 17.6). We administered a standardized writing test that includes diverse subtests to assess spelling, ruled and not ruled, and various written composition tasks (i.e., writing a story based on vignettes, describing a character and writing a story). We calculated the average of correct spellings in each variable and school level, and we also analyzed the type of misspellings that children made across different writing tasks. We found that spelling is acquired by 4th-grade children when it is not ruled, whereas the spelling of ruled words is acquired by 5th-grade children. When we analyzed the misspellings in a dictation task, we found that the children confused spelling of the graphemes c/s/z/x. Across different writing tasks, we found that students committed more misspellings with the graphemes b/v, h y c/s/z/x before they finished the 4th elementary grade.     

Genes, language development, and language disorders

Genetic factors are important contributors to language and learning disorders, and discovery of the underlying genes can help delineate the basic neurological pathways that are involved. This information, in turn, can help define disorders and their perceptual and processing deficits. Initial molecular genetic studies of dyslexia, for example, appear to converge on defects in neuronal and axonal migration. Further study of individuals with abnormalities of these genes may lead to the recognition of characteristic cognitive deficits attributable to the neurological dysfunction. Such abnormalities may affect other disorders as well, and studies of co-morbidity of dyslexia with attention deficit disorder and speech sound disorder are helping to define the scope of these genes and show the etiological and cognitive commonalities between these conditions. The genetic contributions to specific language impairment (SLI) are not as well defined at this time, but similar molecular approaches are being applied to identify genes that influence SLI and comorbid disorders. While there is co-morbidity of SLI with dyslexia, it appears that most of the common genetic effects may be with the language characteristics of autism spectrum disorders rather than with dyslexia and related disorders. Identification of these genes and their neurological and cognitive effects should lay out a functional network of interacting genes and pathways that subserve language development. Understanding these processes can form the basis for refined procedures for diagnosis and treatment.     

The development of figurative language in children

Children in the third, fourth, and fifth grades were asked to do three different tasks in an attempt to determine their ability to use figurative language. Results for a Composition task showed that children produced a greater number of frozen than novel figures and that the absolute level of such usage decreased over grades. Results for a Multiple Sentences task revealed that children produced more frozen than novel figures and that both showed a marked increase over grade. Results for a Comparisons task indicated that figurative language increased over grade, and that for this task children used more novel than frozen figures. Taken in conjunction with earlier work, these data suggest that children are able to use figurative language well before theycan explain the exact nature of the relationship linking elements of the figure. In Piagetian terms, this implies that children use figurative language in the stage of concrete operations but cannot explain such usage until the stage of formal operations.This research was supported in part by Grant PEG-4-71-0066 from the Region IV Office of Education.     

Gesture paves the way for language development

In development, children often use gesture to communicate before they use words. The question is whether these gestures merely precede language development or are fundamentally tied to it. We examined 10 children making the transition from single words to two-word combinations and found that gesture had a tight relation to the children's lexical and syntactic development. First, a great many of the lexical items that each child produced initially in gesture later moved to that child's verbal lexicon. Second, children who were first to produce gesture-plus-word combinations conveying two elements in a proposition (point at bird and say "nap") were also first to produce two-word combinations ("bird nap"). Changes in gesture thus not only predate but also predict changes in language, suggesting that early gesture may be paving the way for future developments in language.     

Relational language and the development of relational mapping

We test the claim that learning and using language for spatial relations can influence spatial representation and reasoning. Preschool children were given a mapping task in which they were asked to find a "winner" placed in a three-tiered box after seeing one placed in a virtually identical box. The correct choice was determined by finding the corresponding relative location in the test box, making it a difficult task for preschool children. We found that hearing language for spatial relations facilitated children's mapping performance. We found effects at younger ages on easier tasks (Experiments 1 and 2) and at older ages on harder tasks (Experiment 3). The effects of spatial relational language differed predictably according to the semantics of the terms children heard (Experiment 4). Finally, the effects of spatial language were maintained over time (Experiment 5): children given one initial exposure to the spatial terms maintained their advantage over baseline children when they again carried out the mapping task 2 days later, with no further exposure to the spatial terms. The evidence is consistent with the explanation that language bolsters children's spatial encodings, which in turn supports their mapping performance.     

Metalinguistic awareness and language development

Thirty-six 3- and 4-year-old children were given a battery of six metalinguistic tasks and two measures of language development: the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and a sentence comprehension test. The results clearly showed that the majority of preschoolers were able to make at least some metalinguistic judgments, and that metalinguistic performance improved with age. Furthermore, overall performance on the metalinguistic tasks was significantly correlated with each language measure when the effects of age were partialed out. In contrast, the correlation between age and metalinguistic performance was not significant once the effects of both language measures were partialed out. These data demonstrate that preschoolers' metalinguistic abilities are more extensive than has been previously acknowledged, and that they are closely tied to other aspects of language development at this time.     

Symbolic play and language development

Symbolic play and language are known to be highly interrelated, but the developmental process involved in this relationship is not clear. Three hypothetical paths were postulated to explore how play and language drive each other: (1) direct paths, whereby initiation of basic forms in symbolic action or babbling, will be directly related to all later emerging language and motor outputs; (2) an indirect interactive path, whereby basic forms in symbolic action will be associated with more complex forms in symbolic play, as well as with babbling, and babbling mediates the relationship between symbolic play and speech; and (3) a dual path, whereby basic forms in symbolic play will be associated with basic forms of language, and complex forms of symbolic play will be associated with complex forms of language. We micro-coded 288 symbolic vignettes gathered during a yearlong prospective bi-weekly examination (N = 14; from 6 to 18 months of age). Results showed that the age of initiation of single-object symbolic play correlates strongly with the age of initiation of later-emerging symbolic and vocal outputs; its frequency at initiation is correlated with frequency at initiation of babbling, later-emerging speech, and multi-object play in initiation. Results support the notion that a single-object play relates to the development of other symbolic forms via a direct relationship and an indirect relationship, rather than a dual-path hypothesis.     

The relation of the structure of language to performance in mathematics

The relationship of performance in mathematics to syntactical language factors obtained from speech samples was investigated with 95 senior high school geometry students. Statistical procedures included correlation analysis and stepwise regression. The findings indicated that certain syntactical measures indicating logical thought processes correlated significantly with measures of mathematical performance. In addition, these syntactical measures added a statistically significant amount to intelligence in predicting performance in mathematics.     

Effects of receptive language training on receptive and expressive language development

The effects of a six-month training program in receptive language on receptive and expressive language development were investigated. Developmentally retarded preschoolers were pretested and posttested on one standardized test of receptive language and two tests of expressive language. Both the training and control groups participated in a preschool program. In addition, the training group received a two-sequence training program: (1) reinforcement for matching responses to modeling cues and accompanying verbal requests, and (2) reinforcement for appropriate responses to verbal requests alone. The training group demonstrated a significant increase in appropriate responses to verbal request over base-rate performance after the training and also demonstrated a significantly improved posttest performance on one test of expressive language as compared to the control group.The authors wish to thank Mrs. Helen Huggins and the staff of the Aid to Retarded Children's Preschool Training Center, San Francisco, California, for their assistance in this study. A modified version of this paper was presented at the Gatlinburg Conference on Mental Retardation, March, 1974, Gatlinburg, Tennessee.     

Intention, interpretation and the computational structure of language

I show how a conversational process that takes simple, intuitively meaningful steps may be understood as a sophisticated computation that derives the richly detailed, complex representations implicit in our knowledge of language. To develop the account, I argue that natural language is structured in a way that lets us formalize grammatical knowledge precisely in terms of rich primitives of interpretation. Primitives of interpretation can be correctly viewed intentionally, as explanations of our choices of linguistic actions; the model therefore fits our intuitions about meaning in conversation. Nevertheless, interpretations for complex utterances can be built from these primitives by simple operations of grammatical derivation. In bridging analyses of meaning at semantic and symbol-processing levels, this account underscores the fundamental place for computation in the cognitive science of language use.     

Relationships between language structure and language learning: the suffixing preference and grammatical categorization

It is a reasonable assumption that universal properties of natural languages are not accidental. They occur either because they are underwritten by genetic code, because they assist in language processing or language learning, or due to some combination of the two. In this paper we investigate one such language universal: the suffixing preference across the world's languages, whereby inflections tend to be added to the end of words. A corpus analysis of child-directed speech in English found that suffixes were more accurate at cuing the grammatical category of the root word than were prefixes. An artificial language experiment found that there was a learning advantage for suffixes over prefixes in terms of grammatical categorization within an artificial language. The results are consistent with an account of language universals that originate in general purpose learning mechanisms.     

An approach to the study of determiners in early language development

The definite and indefinite articles (the and a) are usually regarded as being a contrastive system. Either the or a is required with a noun, depending on certain semantic and pragmatic considerations. Developmental research views the child as progressively attaining appropriate (adult) use of the two forms. However, both historical and recent developmental evidence indicates that the articles should be incorporated into a total system of determination, including both verbal and nonverbal determiners. A single experiment is described to show 3-year-old children's use of the articles (and other determiners). Several functions of the articles within the two conditions of the experimental context were elicited, as were other verbal (e.g., this, that) and nonverbal (e.g., a point) determiners. It is argued that instead of regarding the child's use of the articles as correct or incorrect, we should look at the form and function of those determiners used and omitted and consider why they are elicited.     

Early language and the development of children's reading skills

There is considerable agreement that vocabulary plays a central role in reading acquisition, but there is less agreement about whether this association is direct or indirect through phonological and print-related knowledge. Longitudinal data from 77 African-American children were analyzed to examine the relationship between language skills, phonological knowledge and print processing skills at pre-kindergarten and kindergarten with reading at pre-kindergarten through second grade. Analyses indicated that home and child care experiences were related to reading indirectly through language and that language and phonological knowledge were both directly related to acquisition of reading skill. This study of African-American children and previous studies of lower- and middle-income children indicate both language and phonological skills play an important role in children becoming successful readers, and that experiences at home and in child care during in early childhood play a role in the acquisition of reading through their enhancement of early language and phonological skills.     

Seven principles of surface structure parsing in natural language

In generative grammar there is a traditional distinction between sentence acceptability, having to do with performance, and sentence grammaticality, having to do with competence. The attempt of this paper is to provide a characterization of the notion ‘acceptable sentence’ in English, with some suggestions as to how this characterization might be made universal. The procedure is to outline a set of procedures which are conjectured to be operative in the assignment of a surface structure tree to an input sentence. To some extent, these principles of parsing are modeled on certain parsing techniques formulated by computer scientists for computer languages. These principles account for the high acceptability of right branching structures, outline the role of grammatical function words in sentence perception, describe what seems to be a fixed limit on short-term memory in linguistic processing, and hypothesize the structure of the internal syntactic processing devices. The operation of various classes of transformations with regard to preparing deep structures for input to parsing procedures such as those outlined in the paper is discussed.     

Learning strategies in two Danish children's language development

A longitudinal investigation of two Danish children's linguistic and cognitive development during their second year is described. A summary of their Mean Length of Utterances (MLU), Vocabulary Scores and performance on the Uzgiris-Hunt infancy assessment scales is presented. The results reveal a pattern of individual differences that can be accommodated within a framework that identifies the use of analytic and holistic strategies as complementary approaches to the process of language learning. The consequences of this theoretical framework for the interpretation of MLU and Vocabulary Scores are discussed.