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Full-Text Articles in Education
The Comprehension Of Metaphor By Preschool Children: Implications For A Theory Of Lexicon, Barbara Pearson
The Comprehension Of Metaphor By Preschool Children: Implications For A Theory Of Lexicon, Barbara Pearson
Barbara Zurer Pearson
Comprehension of metaphor in preschoolers was studied through an elicited repetition task. Subjects were 52 children ages 3;0 to 5;2. Repetition performance on metaphors was compared to repetitions of semantically well-formed literal sentences as well as semantically anomalous sentences, all matched for length, vocabulary and sentence structure. Accuracy on literal and metaphoric stimuli were comparable and both were significantly better than performance on anomalous sentences. There were no effects for age or sex. It was shown that the metaphors were not semantically anomalous to the children and that they were processed on a par with literal language. The argument is …
Dialect-Neutral Indices Of Narrative Cohesion And Evaluation, Frances Burns, Peter A. De Villiers, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Tempii Champion
Dialect-Neutral Indices Of Narrative Cohesion And Evaluation, Frances Burns, Peter A. De Villiers, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Tempii Champion
Barbara Zurer Pearson
Purpose: This study compares the development of essential elements of narrative skill in children from African American English (AAE)- and general American English (GAE)-speaking communities using an innovative elicitation and evaluation paradigm. The measures include: 1) reference contrasting, 2) temporal expressions, 3) mental state descriptions, and 4) understanding of behavior based on false belief. Method: Participants were 291 AAE speakers and 238 GAE speakers, 4 to 9 years of age. Approximately one-third of both dialect groups were identified as language impaired. Children generated two stories based on short picture sequences. Their stories were coded for the four key indices of …
Phonological Milestones For African American English-Speaking Children Learning Mainstream American English As A Second Dialect, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Shelley Velleman, Tiffany Charko, Timothy J. Bryant
Phonological Milestones For African American English-Speaking Children Learning Mainstream American English As A Second Dialect, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Shelley Velleman, Tiffany Charko, Timothy J. Bryant
Barbara Zurer Pearson
Purpose: This study provides milestones for phonological development in African American English (AAE) speakers learning Mainstream American English (MAE) as a second dialect for use by practicing speech-language pathologists. Method: The Dialect Sensitive Language Test (DSLT, Seymour et al., 2000) was administered to a nationwide sample of typically-developing children ages 4-12: 537 speakers of AAE as a first dialect and 317 speakers of MAE as a first dialect. DSLT items tested all consonant segments and many clusters of MAE in initial and final position. The age at which each dialect group reached 90% criterion for each segment in each position …
Cross-Language Synonyms In The Lexicons Of Bilingual Infants: One Language Or Two?, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Sylvia C. Fernandez, D.Kimbrough Oller
Cross-Language Synonyms In The Lexicons Of Bilingual Infants: One Language Or Two?, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Sylvia C. Fernandez, D.Kimbrough Oller
Barbara Zurer Pearson
This study tests the widely-cited claim from Volterra & Taeschner (1978), which is reinforced by Clark's Principle of Contrast (1987), that young simultaneous bilingual children reject cross-language synonyms in their earliest lexicons. The rejection of translation equivalents is taken by Volterra & Taeschner as support for the idea that the bilingual child possesses a single-language system which includes elements from both languages. We examine first the accuracy of the empirical claim and then its adequacy as support for the argument that bilingual children do not have independent lexical systems in each language. The vocabularies of 27 developing bilinguals were recorded …
Patterns Of Interaction In The Lexical Development In Two Languages Of Bilingual Infants, Barbara Pearson, Sylvia Fernandez
Patterns Of Interaction In The Lexical Development In Two Languages Of Bilingual Infants, Barbara Pearson, Sylvia Fernandez
Barbara Zurer Pearson
We investigated the extent to which bilingual children follow the same patterns and timetable of lexical development as monolinguals. For a group of 20 simultaneous bilingual (English-Spanish) infants, ages 10 to 30 months, we looked at the patterns of growth in one language in relation to growth in the other and also with respect to growth in both languages combined. The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI), standardized parent report forms in Spanish and English, provided measures of lexical growth in two languages at varying intervals within the age range. We plotted the two single-language measures, as well as Total and …
Lexical Development In Bilingual Infants And Toddlers: Comparison To Monolingual Norms, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Sylvia C. Fernandez, D.Kimbrough Oller
Lexical Development In Bilingual Infants And Toddlers: Comparison To Monolingual Norms, Barbara Zurer Pearson, Sylvia C. Fernandez, D.Kimbrough Oller
Barbara Zurer Pearson
This study compares lexical development in a sample of 25 simultaneous bilingual and 35 monolingual children for whom semilongitudinal data were collected between the ages of 8 and 30 months. A standardized parent report form, the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (1989), was used to assess the children's receptive and productive vocabulary in English and/or Spanish. A methodology was devised to assess the degree of overlap between the bilingual children's lexical knowledge in one language and their knowledge in the other. Using the measures presented here, there was no statistical basis for concluding that the bilingual children were slower to develop …