The Cambridge Handbook of Child Language brings together the world's foremost researchers to provide a one-stop resource for the study of language acquisition and development. Grouped into five thematic sections, the handbook is organized by topic, making it easier for students and researchers to use when looking up specific in-depth information. It covers a wider range of subjects than any other handbook on the market, with chapters covering both theories and methods in child language research and tracing the development of language from prelinguistic infancy to teenager. Drawing on both established and more recent research, the Handbook surveys the crosslinguistic study of language acquisition; prelinguistic development; bilingualism; sign languages; specific language impairment, language and autism, Down syndrome and Williams syndrome. This book will be an essential reference for students and researchers working in linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, speech pathology, education and anthropology.

Reviews of the hardback:‘… a standard work … it succeeds magnificently in charting the advances made in theory, methodology and application over the last four decades.'

Paul Fletcher - University College Cork

‘It is rare to see such a broad and representative range of perspectives covered in a single volume … an excellent resource for researchers as well as those hoping to learn more about child language acquisition …'

Janet F. Werker - University of British Columbia

'… this handbook gives a thorough picture of the theoretical debates, findings and methodologies of the field of language acquisition.'

Source: Journal of Child Language

'… this book meets its stated aim to provide summaries of current work on a variety of language development topics.'

Source: Journal of Child Language