It has been stated that the study of aphasia tells us little or nothing about normal language. On the other hand, it is commonplace to consider that slips of the tongue do. In this paper I show that many kinds of aphasic errors demonstrate precisely what slips in normals do. Consequently, it is not unreasonable to consider that the study of aphasia can indeed shed light on normal language processes as well as aphasic processes and can be handled in a framework designed to account for slips of the tongue in normal speakers. Similar “editing” mechanisms are needed for explaining the structure of errors produced by both aphasics and normals. Finally, it is suggested that this approach can help us further understand what is not abnormal in aphasia in general, as well as highlight the ways in which distinct types of aphasic “slips” can characterize different syndromes. Consequently, we will have gained additional information regarding the nature of aphasia itself.

In order to build complex language from perceptual input, children must have access to a powerful information processing system that can analyze, store, and use regularities in the signal to which the child is exposed. In this article, we propose that one of the most important parts of this underlying machinery is the linked set of cognitive and language processing components that comprise the child's developing working memory (WM). To examine this hypothesis, we explore how variations in the timing, quality, and quantity of language input during the earliest stages of development are related to variations in WM, especially phonological WM (PWM), and in turn language learning outcomes. In order to tease apart the relationships between early language experience, WM, and language development, we review research findings from studies of groups of language learners who clearly differ with respect to these aspects of input. Specifically, we consider the development of PWM in children with delayed exposure to language, that is, children born profoundly deaf and exposed to oral language following cochlear implantation and internationally adopted children who have delayed exposed to the adoption language; children who experience impoverished language input, that is, children who experience early bouts of otitis media and signing deaf children born to nonsigning hearing parents; and children with enriched early language input, that is, simultaneous bilinguals and second language learners.

To examine interactions between young children's vocabulary size and their phonological abilities, spontaneous language samples were collected from 24-month-olds with precocious lexicons, their age mates (24-month-olds with average-sized lexicons), and their vocabulary mates (30-month-olds with average-sized lexicons). Phonological ability was measured in a variety of ways, such as the number of different consonants that were targeted, the number of different consonants produced correctly, the percentage of consonants produced correctly, and the occurrence of phonological processes. The lexically precocious 24-month-olds were similar to their vocabulary mates on most measures of phonological ability, and both of these groups were generally superior to the 24-month-olds with smaller lexicons. These findings supported a hypothesized relationship between lexicon size and phonological performance, and demonstrated that 2-year-olds' phonological development is more closely related to size of the lexicon than chronological age.

The present study investigated the role of phonological and orthographic processing skills in adult second language reading. The subjects were 60 ESL graduate students; all were native speakers of Farsi. Three types of ESL reading measures were used as criterion variables: reading comprehension, silent reading rate, and the ability to recognize individual words. Data were analyzed using correlational and hierarchical multiple regression. Efficiency in phonological and orthographic processing contributed significantly to individual differences on the reading measures. In particular, efficiency in orthographic processing contributed to the reading measures independently of syntactic and semantic measures. The study suggests that it is useful to consider individual differences in ESL reading with respect to individual differences in lower level processes – particularly the efficiency with which readers process phonological and orthographic information.

To examine the factors that affect the learning of letter names, an important foundation for literacy, we asked 318 US and 369 Brazilian preschoolers to identify each uppercase letter. Similarity of letter shape was the major determinant of confusion errors in both countries, and children were especially likely to interchange letters that were similar in shape as well as name. Errors were also affected by letter frequency, both general frequency and occurrence of letters in children's own names. Differences in letter names and letter frequencies between English and Portuguese led to certain differences in the patterns of performance for children in the two countries. Other differences appeared to reflect US children's greater familiarity with the conventional order of the alphabet. Boys were overrepresented at the low end of the continuum of letter name knowledge, suggesting that some boys begin formal reading instruction lacking important foundational skills.

In multilingual Asian communities, determining language dominance for clinical assessment and intervention is often complex. The aim of this study was to develop a self-report classification tool for identifying the dominant language in English–Mandarin bilinguals. Participants (N = 168) completed a questionnaire on language history and single-word receptive vocabulary tests (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test type) in both languages. The results of a discriminant analysis on the self-report data revealed a reliable three-way classification into English-dominant, Mandarin-dominant, and balanced bilinguals. The vocabulary scores supported these dominance classifications, whereas the more typical variables such as age of first exposure, years of formal instruction, and years of exposure exerted only a limited influence. The utility of this classification tool in clinical settings is discussed.

The number of bilingual children is growing dramatically all over the world. In 2010 the International Organization of Migration documented 214 million migrants worldwide, many bilingual (Koser & Laczko, 2010). One of the challenges arising from the rapid increase of bilingual children is scientifically grounded assessment of linguistic proficiency in both of a child's languages in various language domains. Assessment in both languages is especially important to avoid misdiagnosis of language impairment. Specific language impairment (SLI) is among the most prevalent impairments, estimated to affect 7%–10% of children entering formal education (Grimm, 2003; Tomblin, Smith, & Zhang, 1997). Assessment tools for bilinguals in both the home language and the majority language are often lacking (for exceptions, see Gagarina, Klassert, & Topaj, 2010; Schulz & Tracy, 2011).

Cognitive, academic, first language, and second language abilities of language impaired children attending French immersion programs were assessed in kindergarten and in grade 1. After two years of instruction in a second language the linguistic and cognitive skills of these children were similar to a comparable group of language impaired children who were educated in their first language. The language impaired children were also acquiring proficiency in second language skills, although not to the same levels of proficiency as French immersion children with normal first language abilities. The results are discussed in light of current theories of optimal language of instruction.

The narrative macrostructure of 16 Finnish–Swedish bilingual children (M age = 5 years, 8 months) was assessed in both of their languages. In the case of the Finnish language, the macrostructure was compared with that of 16 monolingual same-age peers. The narratives were analyzed for story structure, structural complexity, and internal state terms in two conditions (telling and retelling). There were no differences in macrostructure between the two languages of bilingual children, or between the monolingual and bilingual children. However, the results revealed differences between elicitation tasks. The story structure score for bilingual children was lower in a telling task than in a retelling task in Finnish. Further, the retelling task elicited higher structural complexity and more internal state terms, regardless of the language.

French/English bilingual children (N=40) in French language schools participated in an 8-month longitudinal study of the relation between phonological processing skills and reading in French and English. Participants were administered measures of phonological awareness, working memory, naming speed, and reading in both languages. The results of the concurrent analyses show that phonological awareness skills in both French and English were uniquely predictive of reading performance in both languages after accounting for the influences of cognitive ability, reading ability, working memory, and naming speed. These findings support the hypothesis that phonological awareness is strongly related to beginning word reading skill in an alphabetic orthography. The results of the longitudinal analyses also suggest that orthographic depth influences phonological factors related to reading.

The article describes two research programs on the syntactic abilities of hearing impaired and normal hearing individuals. The first program was concerned with describing some of the syntactic problems of deaf students in acquiring English structure; the second involved the construction of the Test of Syntactic Abilities and its application to deaf, hard of hearing, and normal hearing students in the United States, Canada, and Australia. This report has four objectives: (1) to summarize and integrate the findings of the two research programs, (2) to relate the findings to the literature on other populations, (3) to discuss strategies used by the research populations in handling English syntax, and (4) to discuss some applications of the findings to language development.

The study of African American English (AAE) has been historically focused on the dialectal variations of adolescent and adult speakers. More recent investigations of dialect used by very young AAE speakers were undertaken with the goal of describing the language produced by early elementary and preschool-aged children. One important outcome of these studies is increased attention to the importance of considering the impact of developmental influences in our characterizations of dialect use. In this study we explore the differences between primary caregivers and their young children in dialect use across generations by directly examining the dialectal variations apparent during play interactions between primary caregivers and their young children. We conclude that there is indeed evidence in these interactions of differences between the child and caregiver in the structure and use of individual AAE features. Another conclusion is that there are many similarities in the distribution of AAE between these older and younger interactants, highlighting not only their kinship ties but also their membership in the same linguistic community.

A sentence interpretation experiment based on the functionalist Competition Model of speech processing (Bates & MacWhinney, 1982) was administered to three groups of university-age English L1, Japanese ESL, and Japanese L1 subjects (n = 12 per group) in an attempt to elicit evidence for (1) processing strategies characteristic of the Japanese and English L1 groups and, (2) transfer/influence of Japanese L1 strategies on the English sentence interpretations of the Japanese ESL group. Subjects selected the subject/actor of simple sentences incorporating word order, animacy, and stress cues in random converging and competing orders. The English L1 and ESL groups were tested on English sentences and the Japanese L1 group tested on Japanese sentences. The Japanese L1 interpretations were most heavily influenced by animacy cues, while the English L1 group showed a higher overall sensitivity to word order manipulations. The ESL group resembled the Japanese L1 group in reliance on animacy cues, with the exception of allowing inanimate nouns to act as subjects. While the ESL group showed greater sensitivity to word order effects than the Japanese L1 group, no “second-noun” strategy (i.e., systematically interpreting the NNV and VNN orders as left- and right-dislocated SOV and VOS orders) was evident.

Although the findings were generally consistent with previous research, the presence of contrasting response patterns in the English L1 group suggests caution in attempting to typify languages on the basis of processing strategies drawn from probablistic tendencies evident in grouped data, and leaves open the role of such processing strategy typologies as a potential source of variation in inter-language.

We investigated the relation of two dimensions of attentional functioning (sustained auditory attention and resource capacity/allocation) and complex sentence comprehension of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and a group of typically developing (TD) children matched for age. Twenty-six school-age children with SLI and 26 TD peers completed an auditory continuous performance task (ACPT, measure of sustained attention), a concurrent verbal processing-storage task (measure of resource capacity/allocation), and a picture pointing comprehension task. Correlation analyses were run to determine the association between the measures of attention and sentence comprehension. The SLI group performed more poorly than the TD group across all tasks. For the SLI group, even after removing the effects of age, ACPT score and performance on the concurrent processing-storage task still significantly correlated with complex sentence comprehension. Sustained attention also correlated with simple sentence comprehension. Neither attention variable correlated with sentence comprehension in the TD children. For children with SLI, the comprehension of complex grammar appears to involve significant use of sustained attention and resource capacity/allocation. Even simple sentence comprehension requires significant auditory vigilance. In the case of TD children, neither complex nor simple sentence comprehension appears to invoke significant attentional involvement.

Researchers have gathered a variety of evidence to support the theory that learning to read in one's “mother tongue” or first language enhances a child's achievement relative to that of children obliged to learn to read in a second language. Evidence collected primarily in Europe and America has been applied by international organizations to support early mother-tongue education programs in many Third World countries. The data reported in this article suggest that a general application of this conclusion is not justified. The present article reports on a longitudinal study of literacy acquisition among 166 grade 1 children from a rural town in Morocco. Children in the sample came from two distinct linguistic communities (Moroccan Arabic and Berber), but lived in the same village, attended the same schools, and received literacy instruction in Arabic and subsequently French. The study also considered a number of background variables that might influence learning to read, such as Quranic preschooling experience, parental literacy, gender, and SES. Analyses showed that while there were significant differences in Arabic (first literacy) reading achievement between Berber- and Arabic-speaking groups in the first year of the study, such differences virtually disappeared by year 5. Quranic preschooling, also conducted in Arabic, was found to be a mediating influence on achievement in grade 1. Learning to read in French (second literacy) was unrelated to Berber or Arabic linguistic background, but highly related to reading achievement in Arabic, thus providing support for Cummins's (1979) “interdependence” hypothesis. Overall, the findings support the proposition that children in certain social and linguistic contexts need not be taught in their mother tongue in order to achieve literacy norms of the majority language group. These findings are discussed in terms of the context of language use and language prestige in the Moroccan setting, and in terms of their potential generalizability to other linguistic and cultural contexts.

This study examines the reading patterns of native speakers (NSs) and high-level (Chinese) nonnative speakers (NNSs) on three English sentence types involving temporarily ambiguous structural configurations. The reading patterns on each sentence type indicate that both NSs and NNSs were biased toward specific structural interpretations. These results are interpreted as evidence that both first-language and second-language (L2) sentence comprehension is guided (at least in part) by structure-based parsing strategies and, thus as counterevidence to the claim that NNSs are largely limited to rudimentary (or “shallow”) syntactic computation during online L2 sentence processing.

This study investigates whether and how individual differences modulate the adult second language (L2) processing of syntactic ambiguities. In a linear mixed regression analysis, we test how proficiency, working memory, reading speed, automaticity in lexical access, and grammatical integration ability affect the resolution of temporary object–subject ambiguities in L2 English. The results from 75 first language German advanced learners attest that individual differences in syntactic integration ability modulate the reliance on morphosyntactic and plausibility information. Similar to native speakers, L2 learners are found to adopt two different routes in L2 processing. The findings highlight the role of individual differences and qualify previous generalizations about the relative use of morphosyntactic and other types of information in L2 processing.

The learning of second language vocabulary in lists of word pairs is a widespread practice. A basic practical question in this respect is whether it is more effective for nonfluent bilinguals to learn word pairs in first language–second language order (Ll–L2), or vice versa. To date, experimental psychology has not given a clear answer to this question, partly because it has not addressed the relevant issues directly. This article reviews some aspects of psychology that are relevant to L2 vocabulary list learning and reports on an experiment conducted with comprehensive (high) school students, aged 11–13, who were learning French. The experiment examined the presentation of vocabulary items to be learned. It was found that presenting items in L1–L2 order was the more versatile form of presentation if both production and comprehension of L2 items were required on the part of the learner. The theoretical implications of the findings, relating to the structure of the bilingual lexicon, are also discussed.

The study explored narrative production and comprehension in typically developing Italian–English sequential bilinguals. Thirty 5- to 6-year-olds and 32 6- to 7-year-olds were presented with story telling and retelling tasks, each followed by comprehension questions in Italian (their first language) and English (their second language). The macrostructure of narratives produced was analyzed, considering total amount of relevant information, story complexity, and mental state terms. Comprehension questions focused on implicit story information (i.e., characters’ mental states and goals). The results indicated that (a) older children outperformed younger ones on all measures; (b) an advantage of first language (Italian) over second language (English) emerged for younger children; and (c) comprehension and production were both more accurate in story retelling than in telling. Theoretical and methodological implications of these results are discussed.

In spite of burgeoning evidence that the orthographic forms (“spellings”) of second language (L2) words affect L2 learners’ pronunciation, little is known about the pronunciation of known words in experienced learners. In a series of four studies, we investigated various orthographic effects on the pronunciation of L2 English words in instructed learners with 10 years’ experience of learning English. Participants were native users of the phonologically transparent Italian writing system. Study 1 investigated the pronunciation of “silent letters,” using a word-reading task and a word-repetition task. Study 2 examined the effects of vowel spelling on vowel duration, namely, whether L2 speakers produce the same target vowel as longer when it is spelled with a vowel digraph than with a singleton letter. Study 3 explored the effects of the morphemic spelling of the past tense marker <ed> using a verb paradigm-production task. Study 4 tested whether L2 speakers produce homophonic words differently when they are spelled differently. Results confirmed that orthographic forms affect experienced instructed learners’ pronunciation of known words, albeit less so in immediate word repetition than in reading-aloud tasks.