This study investigated links between the development of children’s understanding of ironic comments and their metapragmatic knowledge. Forty-six 8-year-olds completed the short version of the Irony Comprehension Task, during which they were presented with ironic comments in three stories and asked to provide reasons for why the speaker in a story uttered an ironic comment. We coded their responses and compared the results to similar data collected previously with 5-year-olds. Results showed that compared to younger children, 8-year-olds frequently refer to interlocutors’ emotions, intentions, and to metapragmatics. These results support the view that comprehension of verbal irony is an emerging skill in children.

Previous research on the L1 acquisition of motion event expression suggests that mapping multiple semantic components onto syntactic units is associated with greater difficulties in verb-framed than in satellite-framed languages, because the former require more complex structures (using subordination). This study investigated the impact of this language-specific difference in English–French bilingual children’s caused motion expressions. 2L1 children (n = 96) between 4 and 10 years and monolingual English and French children (n = 96) described video animations portraying caused motion events involving multiple semantic components. Results revealed reduced rates of subordinate constructions in bilinguals’ French descriptions, and more so in older than younger children, while English responses aligned with monolinguals. Semantic density of responses strongly predicted syntactic complexity, but exclusively in French. These asymmetric findings indicate a task-specific syntactic relief strategy and are discussed in the context of theoretical claims about universal biases of event encoding and bilingual-specific optimisation strategies.

Languages employ different means to manifest the unaccusative-unergative distinction. In Mandarin Chinese, unaccusative verbs are allowed in the inversion construction “V-le NP”, while unergative verbs are not. This grammaticality contrast brings a presence/absence contrast between the two verb classes in the inversion construction in the input. Using an eye fixation task, we investigated whether Mandarin-learning 19-month-olds were sensitive to this specific input frequency contrast. We found that infants distinguished the grammatical versus ungrammatical uses of the two verb classes in the inversion construction “V-le NP” (Experiment 1). When the verb classes were in the “NP V-le” order (Experiment 2) (i.e., the same level of grammaticality), infants showed no evidence of a looking difference. These responses indicate toddlers’ sensitivity to the distribution of the two verb classes in the inversion construction. This distributional information is likely to be one of the potential cues that facilitate their acquisition of the unaccusative-unergative distinction.

What are the constraints, cues, and mechanisms that help learners create successful word-meaning mappings? This study takes up linguistic disjunction and looks at cues and mechanisms that can help children learn the meaning of or. We first used a large corpus of parent-child interactions to collect statistics on or uses. Children started producing or between 18-30 months and by 42 months, their rate of production reached a plateau. Second, we annotated for the interpretation of disjunction in child-directed speech. Parents used or mostly as exclusive disjunction, typically accompanied by rise-fall intonation and logically inconsistent disjuncts. But when these two cues were absent, disjunction was generally not exclusive. Our computational modeling suggests that an ideal learner could successfully interpret an English disjunction (as exclusive or not) by mapping forms to meanings after partitioning the input according to the intonational and logical cues available in child-directed speech.

Internal state language (ISL) research contains knowledge gaps, including dimensionality and predictors of growth, addressed here in a two-aim study. Parent-reported expressive language from N = 6,373 monolingual, English-speaking toddlers (Mage = 23.5mos, 46% male, 57% white) was collected using cross-sectional and longitudinal data in WordBank. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested a best-fitting one-factor model of ISL. The single-factor model of ISL was then submitted to hierarchical linear modeling to evaluate predictors of ISL development. Age 2 ISL production was predicted by child sex, wherein females outperform males, and maternal education, wherein higher education contributes to higher ISL. Only maternal education emerged as a significant predictor of ISL growth. These results provide support to theory suggesting a unitary construct of ISL, as opposed to considering ISL as categorical, and further illustrate linear growth through the second postnatal year that varies as a function of child sex and maternal education.

While consonant acquisition clearly requires mastery of different articulatory configurations (segments), sub-segmental features and suprasegmental contexts influence both order of acquisition and mismatch (error) patterns (Bérubé, Bernhardt, Stemberger & Ciocca, 2020). Constraints-based nonlinear phonology provides a comprehensive framework for investigating the impact of sub- and suprasegmental impacts on acquisition (Bernhardt & Stemberger, 1998). The current study adopted such a framework in order to investigate these questions for Granada Spanish. Single-word samples of monolingual preschoolers in Granada (29 typically developing; 30 with protracted phonological development) were transcribed by native Spanish speakers in consultation with an international team. Beta regression analyses showed significant effects of age, developmental group, and word structure variables (word length, stress, position of consonants and syllables within the word); salience, markedness and/or frequency across the phonological hierarchy accounted for many patterns. The study further demonstrates the impacts of sub- and suprasegmental constraints of the phonological system on consonant acquisition.

The present study examined the links between haptic word processing speed, vocabulary, and inhibitory control among bilingual children. Three main hypotheses were tested: faster haptic processing speed, measured by the Computerized Comprehension Task at age 1;11, would be associated with larger concurrent vocabulary and greater longitudinal vocabulary growth. Second, early vocabulary size would be associated with greater vocabulary growth at 3;0 and 5;0. Finally, faster haptic processing speed would be associated with greater concurrent inhibitory control, as measured by the Shape Stroop Task. The results revealed that haptic processing speed was associated with concurrent vocabulary, but not predictive of later language skills. Also, early decontextualized vocabulary was predictive of vocabulary at 3;0. Finally, haptic processing speed measured in the non-dominant language was associated with inhibitory control. These results provide insight on the mechanisms of lexical retrieval in young bilinguals and expand previous research on haptic word processing and vocabulary development.

Current understanding of word-finding (WF) difficulties in children and their underlying language processing deficit is poor. Authors have proposed that different underlying deficits may result in different profiles. The current study aimed to better understand WF difficulties by identifying difficult tasks for children with WF difficulties and by focusing on semantic vs. phonological profiles. Twenty-four French-speaking children with WF difficulties and 22 children without WF difficulties, all aged 7- to 12-years-old, participated. They were compared on a range of measures to cover the overall mechanism of WF and the quality of semantic and phonological representations. The largest differences were found on a parent questionnaire and a word definition task. Cluster analyses revealed “high performance” and “low performance” clusters, with intermediary groups. These clusters did not match the expected semantic vs. phonological profiles derived from models of lexical access, suggesting that WF difficulties may be linked to both semantic and phonological deficits.

Sentences that have more than one possible meaning are said to be syntactically ambiguous (SA). Because the correct interpretation of these sentences can be unclear, resolving SA sentences can be cognitively demanding for children, particularly with regards to inhibitory control (IC). In this study we provide three lines of evidence supporting the importance of IC in SA resolution. First, we show that children with higher IC resolve more SA sentences correctly. Second, we show that SA resolution is worse on tasks that place higher demands on IC, even for children with high IC. Third, we show that children with higher IC make different types of SA errors than children with lower IC. This study expands understanding of the cognitive skills underlying language and suggests a need to consider task demands on IC when developing educational curriculums.

This study examines lexical and phonological factors that influence word production and pronunciation. Specifically, we investigate whether phonological production (measured by percent consonants correct) contributes to word production and pronunciation over and above the properties of the target words (e.g., word frequency, neighborhood density, and phonetic complexity). Forty French-speaking monolingual and bilingual children, aged 1;11 to 3;1, participated in a spontaneous language sample and were administered a naming and a nonword repetition task. Their parents filled out the MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventory (MCDI) and rated their children’s pronunciation on an experimental version of the MCDI. Statistical models indicated that word frequency and the phonetic complexity of the target words influenced whether a word was produced. These factors along with neighborhood density and the children’s production capacities influenced whether a word was pronounced poorly or well. Findings indicate that parents can provide reliable information on the word pronunciation of their children.

In this study, we report an extensive investigation of the structural language and acoustical specificities of the spontaneous speech of ten three- to five-year-old verbal autistic children. The autistic children were compared to a group of ten typically developing children matched pairwise on chronological age, nonverbal IQ and socioeconomic status, and groupwise on verbal IQ and gender on various measures of structural language (phonetic inventory, lexical diversity and morpho-syntactic complexity) and a series of acoustical measures of speech (mean and range fundamental frequency, a formant dispersion index, syllable duration, jitter and shimmer). Results showed that, overall, the structure and acoustics of the verbal autistic children’s speech were highly similar to those of the TD children. Few remaining atypicalities in the speech of autistic children lay in a restricted use of different vocabulary items, a somewhat diminished morpho-syntactic complexity, and a slightly exaggerated syllable duration.

Much like early speech, early signing is characterised by modifications. Sign language phonology has been analysed on the feature level since the 1980s, yet acquisition studies predominately examine handshape, location, and movement. This study is the first to analyse the acquisition of phonology in the sign language of a Balinese village with a vibrant signing community and applies the same feature analysis to adult and child data. We analyse longitudinal data of four deaf children from the Kata Kolok Child Signing Corpus. The form comparison of child productions and adult targets yields three main findings: i) handshape modifications are most frequent, echoing cross-linguistic patterns; ii) modification rates of other features differ from previous studies, possibly due to differences in methodology or KK’s phonology; iii) co-occurrence of modifications within a sign suggest feature interdependencies. We argue that nuanced approaches to child signing are necessary to understand the complexity of early signing.

Linguistic input in multi-lingual/-cultural contexts is highly variable. We examined the production of English and Malay laterals by fourteen early bilingual preschoolers in Singapore who were exposed to several allophones of coda laterals: Malay caregivers use predominantly clear-l in English and Malay, but their English coda laterals can also be l-less (vocalised/deleted) and in formal contexts, velarised. Contrastingly, the English coda laterals of the Chinese majority are typically l-less. Findings show that English coda laterals were overall more likely to be l-less than Malay laterals like their caregivers’, but English coda laterals produced by children with close Chinese peer(s) were more likely to be l-less than those without. All children produced English coda clear-l, demonstrating the transmission of an ethnic marker that had emerged from long-term contact. In diverse settings, variation is intrinsic to the acquisition process, and input properties and language experience are important considerations in predicting language outcomes.

Index-finger pointing is foundational to language acquisition. Less is known about its emergence. In lab-based monthly longitudinal assessments from 8-13 months (N = 31) the study measured longitudinal predictors of index-finger pointing: parent pointing and infants’ earlier emerging showing, hand-pointing, and point-following. All behaviors increased significantly with age and showed inter-individual stability. At 11 months all behaviors except hand pointing were synchronously interrelated, with no evidence for an earlier synchronous interrelation between behaviors. Caregiver pointing and infants’ earlier behaviors longitudinally predicted the age of emergence of index-finger pointing. An additional cross-sectional comparison of parent pointing at 5 and 7 months (N = 44) showed that significantly fewer caregivers of 5- compared to 7-month-olds pointed for their infants. Findings suggest that pointing emerges as an outcome of social co-construction across the first year of life.

Little is known about the productive morphosyntax of Norwegian children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The current study examined morphosyntax in Norwegian-speaking children with DLD (n =19) and a control group that was pairwise matched for age, gender, and intelligence quotient (IQ; n = 19). The children’s sentence repetitions were studied through the lens of Processability Theory. The group differences were largest for grammatical structures at the latest developmental stage of the processability hierarchy. The Norwegian subordinate clause word order, belonging to the latest stage of the processability hierarchy, stood out as particularly challenging for children with DLD. Only 2 children with DLD but 16 children in the control group produced a subordinate clause with subordinate clause word order. Categorization of children’s errors revealed that children with DLD made more errors of all types (addition, omission, substitution, inflection and word order) but especially errors of omission and inflection.

Indirect answers are a common type of non-literal language that do not provide an explicit “yes” or “no” to a question (e.g., “I have to work late” indirectly answered “Are you going to the party?” with a negative response). In the current study, we examined the developmental trajectory of comprehension of indirect answers among 5- to 10-year-old children with typical development. Forty-eight children, 23 boys and 25 girls, between the ages of 5 years; 0 months and 10 years; 11 months (M = 8;2, SD = 19.77 months) completed an experimental task to judge whether a verbally presented indirect answer meant yes or no (Comprehension Task) and then explain their choice (Explanation Task). Responses were scored for accuracy and coded for error analysis. On the Comprehension Task, the 5- to 8-year-olds performed with approximately 85% accuracy, while the 9- and 10-year-olds achieved 95% accuracy. On the Explanation Task, the cross-sectional trajectory revealed three stages: the 5- and 6-year-olds adequately explained indirect answers 32% of the time, the 7- and 8-year-olds performed significantly higher at 55%, and the 9- and 10-year-olds made significant gains than the younger children at 66%. Error analysis revealed that when children fail to interpret speaker intentions appropriately, they repeat the speaker’s utterance or provide an insufficient explanation 80% of the time. Other responses, such as those irrelevant to the context, indicating “I don’t know” or no response, or that were made-up interpretations each accounted for 2%-10% of total inadequate explanations. Study findings indicate discrepancies between task performances and offer two separate sets of baseline data for future comparisons that investigate comprehension or explanation of indirect answers by children with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and by those with varying cognitive and language profiles.

We investigate whether child-directed speech (CDS) contains a higher proportion of canonical pronunciations compared to adult-directed speech (ADS), focusing on Korean noun stem-final obstruent variation. In a word-teaching task, we observed that mothers use a higher rate of canonical pronunciation when addressing infants than when addressing adults. In a follow-up experiment, adults exhibited a higher rate of canonical pronunciation for high- than low-frequency words. Additional analyses conducted with only the high-frequency monosyllabic words from the two experiments found no evidence for simplified phonology in CDS when lexical frequency was controlled for. Our findings suggest that the higher rate of canonical forms in CDS, with respect to Korean morphophonological rules, is mediated by the frequency of word usage. Thus, the didactic function of CDS phonology appears to be a byproduct of mothers using familiar words with children. These results highlight the importance of considering word usage in investigating the nature of CDS.

The purpose of the current study was to revisit a controversial topic: whether frequencies of phonological consonant and vowel classes differ in speech directed to children and to adults. In addition, the current study investigated whether the frequency of phonological consonant and vowel classes changes with children’s increasing chronological and/or developmental age. This study analyzed speech input from 44 adults to four different age groups of listeners (i.e., three groups of children at 6, 18, and 36 months of age and one group of adult listeners) in terms of frequency of occurrence of consonant and vowel classes. Results revealed that consonant stop, nasal, fricative and glide manner classes as well as all four consonant place classes were significantly different in speech directed to the four different age groups. A perspective is discussed to better understand the nature of frequency input of phonological sound classes.

While socioeconomic disparities in the home language environment have been well established, the mechanisms explaining these disparities are poorly understood. One plausible mechanism is heightened stress. The current study investigated whether maternal perceived stress was 1) associated with measures of the home language environment, and 2) mediated the relation between socioeconomic disparities and the home language environment. Data from three independent studies were analyzed, which together comprised 322 mother-child dyads. Two studies included mothers and their six- to twelve-month-old infants (N = 227). The third included mothers and their five- to nine-year-old children (N = 95). Mothers reported their educational attainment, income, and stress. Language Environment Analysis (LENA) measured the home language environment. As has been previously reported, socioeconomic disparities were observed in adult words and conversational turns. Stress did not mediate these associations, nor was it associated with adult words or conversational turns. Alternate mechanisms for future exploration are discussed.