Numerous linguistic studies have been done to substantiate the importance of prepositions in the English language. However, no normative studies have been done on the acquisition of expressing prepositions. The purpose of this investigation was to determine if there were demonstrable trends which would indicate a need for normative data on the acquisition of twenty-six prepositions tested on the Expressive Preposition Test (EPT). The study set out to determine at what age levels a given percentage of the prepositions were expressively acquired and if the socioeconomic status (SES) of the child’s family would be a determiner as to the age at which the child would expressively use prepositions. The EPT was administered to a total of thirty-six children between the ages of four and nine years. One-half of the children were from families of low SES and one-half were from families of high SES. The results show a high correlation between the age of the children and their ability to express prepositions. Each age group up through the eight-year-olds expressed a progressively higher percentage of the prepositions. A statement of positive correlation between intelligence-SES and EPT-SES was made in that those subjects in the high SES group scored higher on the intelligence quotient and EPT scores. Correlation coefficients indicate a slight correlation between the children’s intelligence quotient which ranged from 86-115 and their ability to express prepositions.

The effectiveness of any language training program is determined by generalization of the clinically trained behaviors to spontaneous speech (Hedge, Noll and Pecora, 1979). Traditional language programs which employ operant procedures to establish the behavior in the clinic and reinforcement from family, teachers and peers in a variety of settings to obtain generalization, have been successful in establishing the use of grammatical rules in the clinic setting, but reportedly have failed to promote generalization (Rees, 1978). Recent literature in the areas of semantics and pragmatics has produced a trend toward teaching language in natural contexts. The purpose of this study was to investigate: 1) whether a group taught with a traditional syntax program would generalize the trained structure to spontaneous speech, 2) whether a group trained with a traditional syntax program in combination with nontraditional methods (natural context) would evidence generalization, 3) whether one of the above methods would evidence greater, lesser or the same generalization and 4) which method would take fewer, the same or greater number of sessions.

The purpose of this investigation was to replicate the study conducted by Lee and Canter (1971) and Lee (1974a) to determine if a significant difference among the scores in the two studies existed due to geographical location, and to initiate the establishment of norms for the Portland, Oregon geographical area. Forty children, selected on the basis of chronological age (4.0 to 4.11 years), normal receptive vocabulary skills, normal hearing, and a monolingual background, participated as subjects. A language sample of fifty utterances was elicited from each child and analyzed according to the Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) procedure.

The process of differentially diagnosing a child who is experiencing temporary normal disfluency from one who is beginning to stutter could be made objective by the establishment of normative data on fluency development. To date, there are no standardized norms on the development of fluency in children. Current investigations have contributed greatly to expectations of certain types and amounts of disfluencies in preschool-age children. Most of the research, however, has focused on observing children at discrete age levels from 2- to 7-years-of-age. Only one longitudinal study to date has been reported. Additional longitudinal data of preschoolaged children would benefit the establishment of normative data. Observing the same children over time helps to expose the subtleties that could be missed when looking only at specific age levels. The present study sought to contribute to the investigation of normal childhood disfluency by comparing various types and amounts of disf luencies in 44- to 49-month-old-children to the results of the same group of children when they were 30- to 35-months-of-age.

The purpose of this research project was to determine whether a child-centered parent training program requiring minimal training would increase the language skills of LD pre-school children who have normal receptive language. Seven experimental subjects and 6 control subjects were randomly selected from a pool of middle-class families who answered a newspaper advertisement. The parents of the experimental group received 3 individual training sessions over a 3-month period. They were instructed to spend 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months, in a free play situation with their children using the language stimulation techniques they had learned, i.e., parallel talk, description, self-talk, and expansion. To eliminate a possible "halo effect" from the attention given the children in the experimental group, the parents in the control group were instructed to spend 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months, playing individually with their children.

The selection of the initial lexicon is one of the most important decisions made in the implementation of augmentative communication systems with preliterate, nonspeaking preschool children. If a communication aid is to be adopted by a child, the words available on the device must be interesting to the child and encourage communication. The vocabulary must allow for cognitive growth and foster language development. Ideally, a lexicon would be customized for each nonspeaking child's particular interests, vocabulary needs and developmental level. The reality is that vocabulary selection is a difficult and time consuming process. Parents and clinicians do not always have the time or expertise to develop an individualized lexicon and must depend on a prepared list. These lists are not always appropriate for preschool children. A carefully developed core vocabulary could serve as a framework for the initial lexicon and would ensure that the words available to the children promoted communication and language growth. This would allow caregivers to concentrate on the smaller individualized portion of the lexicon.

There is a growing group of researchers who believe that narrative skills are the bridge from oral language to literacy (Culatta, Page, & Ellis, 1983; Roth & Spekman, 1989; Westby, 1989). Narrative production requires higher level language skills to create a cohesive discourse unit using decontextualized language. Narrative ability has also been found to be the best predictor for normal speech and language development for preschoolers with language impairments (Bishop & Edmundson, 1987) and reading comprehension achievement for learning-disabled, school-age children (Feagans & Applebaum, 1986) . These same skills are prerequisites for achievement of literacy and school success. The purpose of the present study was to compare the story retelling ability of 4-year-olds who did not achieve normal expressive language milestones at age 2 with those who did. The original group size was 22 children with normal expressive vocabulary size at age 24-34 months, and 23 children whose expressive vocabulary size fell below the normal range at 24-34 months referred to as "late talkers."

The purpose of this study was to investigate morphological development in 4-year-old children. Two tests were utilized and compared to see if there was a significant difference between the expression of meaningful and nonmeaningful words. The first test, a modified version of the Test for Examining Expressive Morphology (TEEM), used meaningful words to assess allomorphic variations of six bound morphemes. The second test, a modified version of Berko's Test of English Morphology (BTEM), assessed the same allomorphic variations, but it used nonmeaningful words.

Children's narrative language plays a critical role in guiding the transition between oral language and literacy (Roth & Spekman, 1989; Westby, 1989). Narrative comprehension and production by normally achieving and language delayed school-aged children have been studied. Many of these studies have involved story retellings. Few have studied how spontaneously produced narratives are organized especially by young children.

Although there is agreement in the literature that memory is required for language, there is disagreement as to whether certain memory abilities are prerequisite for language. There has been a significant amount of research in the field of memory development as it relates to language; however, little research has been done in the area of memory and language development in the preschool aged child. This study examined two aspects of auditory memory and language development in the preschool child: (a) the auditory memory abilities of delayed language children versus normal language children, and (b) determining if there is a relationship between auditory memory and language development. The subjects used in this study included 14 ''normal talkers" and 14 children with "slow expressive language development'' (SELD), as determined by the Language Development Survey (Rescorla, 1989) given when the subjects were between 24-34 months of age. When the subjects were 3 years-old they were given the verbal and digit imitation section of the Preschool Language Scale (PLS) as a measure of auditory short-term memory. The results were compared with the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language-Revised (TACL-R), the Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) and the Northwestern Syntax Screening Test (NSST-E) all given at age three. A further comparison was made with the PLS and the Test of Language Development-Primary (TOLD-P) and the DSSJ given at age 4. The Spearman rank correlational statistic was used to determine if a significant relationship existed between memory and language development as seen on the PLS (age 3) and the other language measures given at ages 3 and 4. This study showed that SELD children performed more poorly on verbal and digit memory tasks than their normally speaking peers. Correlational analysis revealed that the PLS-Digit and the PLS-Sentence memory recall tasks were significantly correlated with the DSS given at the same point in time for the normal group, and between the PLS-Sentence and the NSST-E given at the same time for the SELD group. This suggests that a relationship exists between memory and expressive language at the same point in development. Because the relationship exists at the same time, and not across-ages, these findings seem to support the theory that language and memory are related in development, but memory skills at one time do not predict language skills at another. As language and memory seem to be related at the same point in time, testing auditory short-term memory skills in children with language delays will not add new information above what is learned in language testing itself. Further research in this area might investigate whether, as some literature suggests (Kail, 1990), teaching memory strategies to young children with language delays may improve language learning.