The readback/hearback loop is a communicative protocol used in many high-risk environments to ensure that a verbal instruction has been heard correctly by a receiver. However, it does not necessarily ensure that an instruction has been understood. Using an international sample of hydroelectric power generation controllers, this study examined whether particular linguistic (complete and partial readbacks) and prosodic (final intonation, filler, and interturn delay) cues contained within a readback response could signal to listeners the extent to which speakers had understood an instruction. The results indicated that different prosodic cues are used to detect nonunderstandings, depending upon the linguistic content of the readback. The results have implications for training and system design in distributed environments.

In order to build complex language from perceptual input, children must have access to a powerful information processing system that can analyze, store, and use regularities in the signal to which the child is exposed. In this article, we propose that one of the most important parts of this underlying machinery is the linked set of cognitive and language processing components that comprise the child's developing working memory (WM). To examine this hypothesis, we explore how variations in the timing, quality, and quantity of language input during the earliest stages of development are related to variations in WM, especially phonological WM (PWM), and in turn language learning outcomes. In order to tease apart the relationships between early language experience, WM, and language development, we review research findings from studies of groups of language learners who clearly differ with respect to these aspects of input. Specifically, we consider the development of PWM in children with delayed exposure to language, that is, children born profoundly deaf and exposed to oral language following cochlear implantation and internationally adopted children who have delayed exposed to the adoption language; children who experience impoverished language input, that is, children who experience early bouts of otitis media and signing deaf children born to nonsigning hearing parents; and children with enriched early language input, that is, simultaneous bilinguals and second language learners.

The purposes of this study were to examine the dimensions underlying morphological awareness (MA) in Arabic (construct validity) and to determine how well MA predicted reading (predictive validity). Ten MA tasks varying in key dimensions (oral vs. written, single word vs. sentence contexts, and standard vs. local dialect) and two reading tasks (real word and pseudoword reading) were administered to 102 Arabic-speaking Grade 3 children in Abu-Dhabi. Factor analysis of the MA tasks yielded one predominant factor, supporting the construct validity of MA in Arabic. Closer inspection revealed that this factor had two subcomponents, oral and written. Hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for age and gender, indicated that both the one- and the two-factor solutions accounted for 48% of the variance in word reading, and 40% of the variance in pseudoword reading, supporting the predictive validity of MA. Implications for future research, assessment, and instruction are discussed.

We report two sentence-completion experiments investigating how nonnative speakers use universal semantic and discourse information, which are implicit causality and consequentiality biases associated with psychological verbs, to resolve pronouns. The results indicate that intermediate-advanced and advanced Chinese-speaking English learners show weaker implicit causality and consequentiality biases than native English speakers in pronoun resolution. Instead, nonnative speakers exhibit a general subject or first-mention bias. These findings suggest that nonnative speakers do not use semantic and discourse information in comprehension as effectively as native speakers.

This research investigated first language (L1) and second language (L2) orthographic effects on L2 phoneme perception. Twenty-five native English learners of Russian (n = 13) and Mandarin (n = 12) participated in an auditory phoneme counting task, using stimuli organized along two parameters: consistency and homophony. The learners more successfully counted phonemes in L2 words with consistent letter–phoneme correspondences (e.g., всё /fsʲɔ/, three letters/three phonemes) than in words with inconsistent correspondences (e.g., звать /zvatʲ/, five letters/four phonemes), indicating that L2 phoneme awareness is influenced by L2 orthography and that orthographic effects are not limited to the L1. In addition, the lack of any L1 homophone effects suggests that L2 orthographic effects overrode any potential L1 orthographic interference for these intermediate-level learners, suggesting orthographic effects may be language specific.

This study examined the extent to which first language (L1) fluency behavior, cross-linguistic differences, and proficiency can predict second language (L2) fluency behavior over time. English L1 Spanish (n = 24) and French (n = 25) majors completed a picture-based oral narrative in the L2 before and after 5 months residing abroad and later in the L1 after returning home. Data were coded for seven measures of speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. The results from multiple regressions indicated that L1 fluency behavior, cross-linguistic differences, and proficiency differentially contributed to explaining L2 fluency behavior prior to and during immersion. These findings suggest that when investigating L1–L2 fluency relationships considerations of mitigating factors such as cross-linguistic differences are necessary, and it is worthwhile to focus on how the contributions of these factors shift during development.

We describe the European Portuguese version of a test of prosodic abilities originally developed for English: the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (Peppé & McCann, 2003). Using this test, we examined the development of several components of European Portuguese prosody between 5 and 20 years of age (N = 131). Results showed prosodic performance improving with age: 5-year-olds reach adultlike performance in the affective prosodic tasks; 7-year-olds mastered the ability to discriminate and produce short prosodic items, as well as the ability to understand question versus declarative intonation; 8-year-olds mastered the ability to discriminate long prosodic items; 9-year-olds mastered the ability to produce question versus declarative intonation, as well as the ability to identify focus; 10- to 11-year-olds mastered the ability to produce long prosodic items; 14- to 15-year-olds mastered the ability to comprehend and produce syntactically ambiguous utterances disambiguated by prosody; and 18- to 20-year-olds mastered the ability to produce focus. Cross-linguistic comparisons showed that linguistic form–meaning relations do not necessarily develop at the same pace across languages. Some prosodic contrasts are hard to achieve for younger Portuguese-speaking children, namely, the production of chunking and focus.

Comprehension of predicates and reflexives was examined in children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS) who were between 9 years, 7 months and 10 years, 2 months. Demands on working memory and manual reaction time were also assessed in two experiments that employed a four-choice picture-selection sentence comprehension task. CWS were less accurate than CWNS on the attachment of predicates. For reflexives, there was no between-group difference in accuracy, but there was a difference in speed. The two constructions induced processing at different points on a speed–accuracy continuum with CWS sacrificing accuracy to respond fast with predicates, while they maintained accuracy of reflexives by responding slower relative to CWNS. Predicates made more demands on language than nonspeech motor reaction time, whereas the reverse was the case with reflexives for CWS compared to CWNS.

In their keynote article examining links between early experience, phonological working memory, and language outcomes, Pierce, Genessee, Delcenserie, and Morgan (2017) present, what I argue, is a two-pronged hypothesis. In brief, the thesis is that the timing of language exposure and the quality and quantity of language input during an early sensitive period of phonological development shape the quality of phonological representations later used by the phonological working memory system to support short- and long-term language learning. The hypothesis is two-pronged because it hinges on (a) qualitative differences in the development of phonological representations, resulting in (b) variations in the efficiency of working memory as the key constraint on language learning. In this commentary, I examine support for these two prongs in detail.

The current exploratory study aimed at investigating the role of cognitive aptitudes in determining the effect of practice distribution on second language learning. The study investigated to what extent language-analytic ability and working-memory capacity predicted the acquisition of grammar under two learning conditions that differ in the interval between the two training sessions. Learners of Japanese as a second language were trained on an element of Japanese morphosyntax under either distributed practice (7-day interval) or massed practice (1-day interval). The results revealed that language-analytic ability was only related to performance after distributed practice, whereas working-memory capacity was only related to performance after massed practice. These Aptitude × Treatment interaction findings can help establish the learning processes operating under distributed/massed practice conditions.

The present study compares the performance of multilingual children speaking Cypriot Greek, Standard Modern Greek, and English (and sometimes an additional language), bilectal children speakers of Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek, and Standard Modern Greek-speaking monolingual children on a task that measures the comprehension of different types of implicature. Despite lower scores in language ability in the target language, multilingual and bilectal children performed at rates comparable to the monolinguals with implicature. Regression analyses indicated a positive correlation between implicature, language proficiency, and age (but not executive control), albeit language ability did not affect implicature within multilinguals. We suggest an interpretation according to which multilingual, bilectal, and monolingual children maintain a comparable level of implicature understanding, but they do so by relying on different resources. Finally, a principal component analysis on different implicature types revealed a single factor of implicature performance. This outcome has implications for pragmatic theory.

This study investigates whether second language learners’ processing of stress can be explained by the degree to which suprasegmental cues contribute to lexical identity in the native language. It focuses on Standard Mandarin, Taiwan Mandarin, and American English listeners’ processing of stress in English nonwords. In Mandarin, fundamental frequency contributes to lexical identity by signaling lexical tones, but only in Standard Mandarin does duration distinguish stressed–unstressed and stressed–stressed words. Participants completed sequence-recall tasks containing English disyllabic nonwords contrasting in stress. Experiment 1 used natural stimuli; Experiment 2 used resynthesized stimuli that isolated fundamental frequency and duration cues. Experiment 1 revealed no difference among the groups; in Experiment 2, Standard Mandarin listeners used duration more than Taiwan Mandarin listeners did. These results are interpreted within a cue-weighting theory of speech perception.

Children with bilingual typical language development (BITLD) and children with specific language impairment (SLI) present similarities in their linguistic performance (e.g., vocabulary and verb inflections). These observed similarities (Paradis 2010) have led to an influx of studies exploring the sources of these similarities and pointing to areas of disparity aiming to dissociate the effects of SLI and bilingualism in bilingual children with SLI (BISLI). The intriguing link, explored in the Pierce et al. (2017) keynote, between early language experience and the development of phonological working memory (PWM) seamlessly ties into this discussion. Bilinguals, and particularly simultaneous bilinguals, it is claimed, experience an enriched linguistic environment in early childhood that is expected to enhance their PWM. By contrast, children with SLI are claimed to have a neurocognitive impairment that negatively affects their PWM. This commentary explores, first, how both age of onset (AoO) of bilingual exposure and the neurocognitive impairment associated with SLI impact PWM and, second, how this impact might be related to the observed similarities as well as evident differences that emerge from studies comparing children with BITLD to children with SLI (monolingual and bilingual).

There is increasing interest in the link between early linguistic skills and later language development. In a longitudinal study, we investigated infants’ (a) ability to use speech sound categories to guide word learning in the habituation-based minimal pair switch task, and (b) early productive vocabulary, related to their concurrent and later language task performance. The participants at Phase 1 were 64 infants aged 16–24 months (25 with familial risk of language/speech impairment), followed up at 27 months (Phase 2) and at 3 years (Phase 3). Phase 1 productive vocabulary was correlated with Phase 2 productive vocabulary, and with concurrent and later (Phase 3) tests of language production and comprehension scores (standardized tool), and phonology. Phase 1 switch task performance was correlated with concurrent productive vocabulary and language production scores, but not by Phase 3. However, a combination of early low vocabulary score and a preference for looking at an already-habituated word–object combination in the switch task may show some promise as an identifier for early speech–language intervention. We discuss how these relations can help us better understand the foundations of word learning.

Listening comprehension in academic contexts is an important prerequisite for the acquisition of school-related skills. However, the concept of academic language is generally the subject of much debate, and there is no consensus yet on what constitutes academic listening comprehension. To date, it remains unclear whether listening comprehension of academic language may be regarded as a distinct construct. The present study investigates the distinction of academic and everyday listening comprehension in 459 ninth-grade students speaking German as a first language or as a second language. Empirical results provide preliminary evidence that academic listening forms a separate facet of listening comprehension. Contrary to theoretical assumptions, second language students were not particularly disadvantaged in terms of academic listening comprehension.

In children and adults, naming an item sometimes interferes with later attempts to name other items. Adult speakers experience cumulative semantic interference, interpreted as the result of incremental learning. Studies to date have not examined whether incremental learning can also account for interference in children. This study examined context effects on picture naming in 3-year-old children, and investigated whether children, like adults, show interference that is semantically based and cumulative. Children named pictures from semantically homogeneous and mixed sets. Response latency, accuracy, and repetition errors were recorded. The results demonstrated a progressive slowing of responses in the semantically homogeneous condition that was greater than that observed for the mixed condition. There were no significant effects for accuracy. Repetition errors, although infrequent, patterned similarly to previous reports for adults. The results indicate that preschool-aged children experience cumulative semantic interference in naming, and suggest that incremental learning may account for interference effects across development.

The English spelling system has a variety of rules and exceptions, but both theoretical and empirical accounts have generally concluded that by about age 9 or 10, children master the morphological rule that regular plural nouns (e.g., socks) and third-person singular present verbs (e.g., lacks) are spelled with the inflectional ending –s. In three experiments, however, we found that when forced to rely exclusively on morphological cues, only a minority of primary school children, secondary school children, and even adults performed significantly above chance at choosing the appropriate spelling for novel words presented as inflected or uninflected nouns and verbs. Further, significantly above-chance performance was more common in adults who had attended school until age 18, compared to age 16. We conclude that many spellers, especially those who do not go on to tertiary education, never learn some simple morphological spelling rules, and instead rely on a store of individual word-specific spellings.

We analyzed the role played by theory of mind (ToM) in children's ability to recognize and repair different kinds of communicative failures. In particular, we analyzed three different kinds of communicative failures: failure of the expression act, communicative meaning, and communicative effect. We administered videotaped stories, in which people act out a communicative failure and first- and second-order ToM tasks, to 120 children ranging in age from 3.5 to 8.5 years. The children showed a trend of increasing difficulty in managing the communicative failures investigated. Moreover, children's ToM ability is partially correlated with recognition and repair of a communicative task; however, it is not able to explain the trend of difficulty we detected. We suggest that the factor better explaining such trend is the increasing complexity of the mental representations underlying the three different kinds of failures.

Recognizing familiar words quickly and accurately facilitates learning new words, as well as other aspects of language acquisition. This study used the visual world paradigm with semantic and phonological competitors to study lexical processing efficiency in 2- to 5-year-old children. Experiment 1 found this paradigm was sensitive to vocabulary-size differences. Experiment 2 included a more diverse group of children who were tested in their native dialect (either African American English or mainstream American English). No effect of stimulus dialect was observed. The results showed that vocabulary size was a better predictor of eye gaze patterns than was maternal education, but that maternal education level had a moderating effect; as maternal education level increased, vocabulary size was less predictive of lexical processing efficiency.

The nature of structural language difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was explored in a comparative study with specific language impairment (SLI) through investigation of the frequently reported ASD weakness in receptive skills relative to expressive skills. Twenty French-speaking children with ASD aged 6 to 12 were compared to age-matched children with SLI on production and comprehension of wh-questions. The two groups displayed similar effects of the complexity of the different wh-strategies. In the ASD group (as in the SLI group), these effects were not greater in comprehension compared to production; moreover, nonverbal ability (which varied from normal to impaired) was not related to language performance. Observed ASD-SLI differences are argued to largely be due to ASD pragmatic deficits, rather than to a qualitative difference in structural language skills.