Grammatical specific language impairment (G-SLI) has been proposed as a distinct subtype of language impairment. We assessed a large sample of twins between the ages of 7 and 13 years on language comprehension tests sensitive to G-SLI. The sample included 37 same-sex twin pairs selected for the presence of language impairment (LI) in one or both twins and 104 twin pairs from the general population. The number and patterns of errors in those with LI replicated findings from previous studies of G-SLI. Qualitative markers of G-SLI were derived from the tests. Out of 144 children for whom complete data were available, 2 scored positive on all five markers and 9 scored positive on four of the five markers. Most children who made grammatical errors characteristic of G-SLI had co-occurring deficits in other areas. These results raise questions for theories that treat this disorder as an all-or-none modular deficit.

For adults, written spelling is generally superior to oral spelling. To determine whether the same holds true for children in kindergarten through second grade, we compared children's ability to spell real words (Experiment 1) and nonsense words (Experiment 2) orally and in writing. Building on the work of Tangel and Blachman (1992, 1995) and others, we developed a reliable system to assess the overall quality of the children's spellings. We also examined the phonological and orthographic legality of the spellings. By first and second grade, written spellings were superior to oral spellings in both overall quality and representation of phonological form. This held true for both words and nonwords. The results suggest that children, like adults, more accurately analyze the linguistic structure of a spoken item when they can represent the results in a lasting, visible form than when they cannot.

Research has shown that L2 utterances diverge increasingly from target language phonetic norms as the age of L2 learning increases. Other research has suggested that L2 speakers produce longer utterances than native speakers. The aim of this study was to determine whether L2 utterance durations increase as age of learning increases. Fluently produced English sentences spoken by 240 native speakers of both Italian and Korean (selected on the basis of age of arrival [AOA]) were examined. For both L1 groups, the duration of English sentences was positively correlated with AOA. The AOA effect was found to be significant even when confounding variables were partialed out. These results are taken as preliminary support for the proposal that the more established the L1 is at the time of first exposure to the L2, the more it will interfere with L2 production, thus requiring greater processing resources to suppress it.

Using a word order correction paradigm, we assessed syntactic awareness skills in children with good and poor reading comprehension, matched for age, decoding skill, and nonverbal ability. Poor comprehenders performed less well than normal readers, and the performance of both groups was influenced by the syntactic complexity and semantic ambiguity of the sentences. These findings support the view that poor comprehenders have language processing difficulties encompassing grammatical as well as semantic weaknesses, although their phonological processing skills are normal. The implications of such language weaknesses for the development of skilled reading are discussed.

A widely held assumption about dyslexia is that difficulties in accessing the constituent phonemes of the speech stream are responsible for specific reading and spelling difficulties. In consistent orthographies, however, the acquisition of accurate phonological recoding and phonemic awareness was found to pose much less difficulty than in English, and even dyslexic children were found to exhibit high levels of performance in phonemic segmentation (Wimmer, 1993). Nevertheless, using a rather complex phonological awareness and manipulation task (spoonerisms: MAN–HAT → HAN–MAT), Landerl, Wimmer, and Frith (1997) found support for the original position on phonological awareness deficit, as both German and English dyslexic children showed poor performance. In the present studies, the spoonerism responses of Landerl et al. were reanalyzed such that children were given credit for partially correct responses (e.g., a response of HAN for MAN–HAT). Such partially correct responses were taken to indicate full segmentation of both stimulus words at the onset–rime level. The effect of this rescoring was that the error rate dropped from 76% to 26% for the English dyslexic children and from 63% to 15% for the German dyslexic children. Even higher performance levels, although not perfect as for the age-matched control children, were found on a nonword spelling task in both groups. A second study examined the segmentation of consonant clusters in younger German dyslexic children and found performance levels of about 90% correct when memory problems were ruled out. We argue that, at least in the context of a consistent orthography (and a phonics-based teaching approach), deficits in phoneme awareness are only evident in the early stages of reading acquisition, whereas rapid naming and phonological memory deficits are more persistent in dyslexic children.

The relationship between grammatical knowledge and reading ability in third grade good and poor readers was investigated. Two aspects of grammar – binding and control – were assessed to determine whether poor readers had syntactic deficits. These principles both relate to the interpretation of pronominal elements. Interpretations were assessed through a sentence–picture matching task in which picture depictions of all the possible interpretations of pronominal elements in verbally presented sentences were included. The only sentence type that differentiated the two reading groups was performance on sentences related to one of the binding principles, Principle B. Since obedience to Principle B probably involves pragmatic as well as syntactic principles, this finding suggests another way that good readers may differ from poor readers.

The book was, in the first instance, written for the author's own undergraduate students at Florida Atlantic University, where she is a professor of psychology. In the opening chapter she persuades the reader that the study of language development is worthwhile by showing how students from a variety of disciplines benefit from it and by explaining its practical applications. In my own experience this topic is very popular with undergraduates anyway, and so I was slightly surprised that it needed any advertising. However, her message extends beyond trying to instill enthusiasm in her students as it also emphasizes the need for a multidisciplinary approach to the topic.

What could possibly be innate? John Morton asked this question in a symposium on psycholinguistics in 1969 (Morton, 1970), and, as this book makes clear, he was certainly not the last to ask it. The Inheritance and Innateness of Grammars is one of the most recent manifestations of our fascination with the question of just what it is that makes it possible for humans – and only humans – to learn language as we know it. The book is the product of a conference that was held at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver in 1993. Nine chapters present work by authors whose expertise includes such topics as speech perception, neurobiology, sign language, language impairment, and, of course, developmental psycholinguistics. Although the word “inheritance” in the title can be understood to refer to genetics, it would have been helpful if the authors had provided their definitions of the term “innateness.” In its primary sense, innate means inborn or present at birth, but clearly no one is arguing that language itself is present at birth, although most would agree that some capacities that may underlie language can be demonstrated in very young infants. Eric Lenneberg provided one definition of innateness in his book, Biological Foundations of Language (1967), which may be what some authors have in mind since his work is frequently referenced: Animals may be thought of as functioning like machines. Their inner structure is not the result of accidental circumstances. The machine unfolds during development, and the internal structure is programmed onto the ontogenetic process. Let us call the internal structure innate mechanisms and the modes of operation that are determined by these mechanisms innate behavior. (p. 220)

Guadalupe Valdes and Richard Figueroa carefully and clearly craft an argument for why bilingualism and testing constitute a special case of bias that continues to have serious consequences for today's school-age minority population in the United States. This argument could not be more timely, given the drive in the United States for standards and a rising wave of state-mandated standardized testing programs for all students, including bilinguals. Perhaps a summary of this book should be on the desk of every educational leader and policymaker charged with the mandate of administering standardized tests to bilingual students and comparing their scores with those of monolingual groups for the purpose of special education and vocational placements.