Back to School: Italian Teachers' Perceptions of the Impact of COVID-19 on Personal and Social Well-Being and Teaching Methods.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, continuous closing and reopening of schools may have had an impact on teachers' perception of the risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 and of the effectiveness of health measures introduced to limit the spread of the virus, with consequences on teaching methods and relational bonds within schools. By means of an online survey, we measured: teachers' stress, job-satisfaction, self-efficacy and emotions at work, risk-perception of contracting SARS-CoV-2, perception of effectiveness of health measures, teaching methods and social relationships. Participants were 2446 teachers (2142 women and 304 men) all engaged in the four educational stages. Most of the respondents were aged 50 or older (45%), followed by a group aged 41-50 (31%) and by a group aged <40 (24%). We used path analysis to test the impact that COVID-19 had, according to teachers, on teaching methods (Model 1) and social relationships (Model 2). In both models, teachers' stress was positively directly associated with risk-perception of contracting SARS-CoV-2 (Model 1: ß = 0.10; p < 0.001; Model 2: ß = 0.09; p < 0.001). Additionally, we found an indirect path between teachers' stress and risk-perception of contracting SARS-CoV-2 on the one hand, and perception of effectiveness of health measures on the other hand (Model 1: ß = 0.02; p < 0.001; Model 2: ß = 0.02; p < 0.001). These results suggest that, in emergencies, risk perception level, emotional regulation, and teachers' stress levels were all key factors affecting teaching methods and relationship quality in schools.

A Non-Randomized Pilot Study on the Benefits of Baby Swimming on Motor Development.

According to the concept of "embodied cognition", motor development should not be considered distant from cognitive and language processes. Motor development is essential in the first 1000 days of life, as the child explores and learns new information from the environment. Among motor activities, baby swimming allows infants to make movements that they are not able to perform on solid ground. Since movements become slower in water, the sensory perception of these movements is amplified. However, the relationship between early swimming experience and motor development has not yet been investigated. Therefore, we carried out a pilot study with the aim of exploring this relationship for the first time. To that end, 32 infants aged from 6 to 10 months were recruited. The Peabody Developmental Motor Scale-2 was used to assess motor abilities in healthy children who regularly carried out aquatic courses compared to children who never attended swimming practice. Independent-sample t-tests showed significant differences in favor of the group that performed infant swimming activities on measures of reflexes (t = −2.2, p < 0.05), grasping (t = −3.8, p < 0.001), fine-motor quotient (t = −3.4, p < 0.01) and total-motor quotient (t = −2.4, p < 0.05). Overall, in line with the embodied cognition perspective, these preliminary results are encouraging and allow us to investigate how motor development influences later language development.

"Let's Read Together": A Parent-Focused Intervention on Dialogic Book Reading to Improve Early Language and Literacy Skills in Preschool Children.

Many children are at risk for reading difficulties because of inadequate emergent literacy skills. It is widely accepted that development of emergent literacy skills is strictly related to children's early literacy experiences at home and school. Dialogic reading is an evidence-based intervention to promote the language skills of preschool children. This study examined the feasibility and efficacy of a parent-focused dialogic book reading intervention that aimed to foster the early language and literacy skills of pre-school children. A sample of 40 Italian preschoolers (Mage = 62.9 months, SD = 6.3) and their parents were divided into three groups: treatment group (n = 12); information group (n = 12) and control group (n = 16). The efficacy of the intervention for oral language skills was examined by analyzing the improvements from pre- to post-intervention in children's oral language outcomes, through ad hoc and standardized tasks; specifically, by measuring proximal and distal abilities. Additionally, we analyzed the intervention effects on parent-child interaction and dialogic behaviors during shared book reading. Results suggest that a relatively brief intervention (6 weeks) using dialogic book reading strategies can lead to sustained improvements in early language and literacy skills in preschoolers (both proximal and distal) and in parent dialogic behaviors during shared book reading.

Public awareness of developmental language disorder in Croatia, Italy and Slovenia.

BACKGROUND: Previous research, although scarce, has indicated that the general public is still relatively unaware of developmental language disorder (DLD), one of the most common (neuro)developmental disorders. Raising awareness would increase timely involvement in intervention procedures. AIMS: To examine public awareness of DLD in the neighbouring countries of Croatia, Italy and Slovenia, as well as to assess the influence of age, gender and education level on that awareness. Also, to investigate public knowledge about the professionals who recognize DLD and to compare the awareness of DLD with that of other (neuro)developmental disorders in childhood. METHODS & PROCEDURES: A convenience sample of adults living in the countries of the Adriatic region-Croatia (N = 92), Italy (N = 105) and Slovenia (N = 90)-were asked to fill out a paper-and-pencil questionnaire (public survey) developed within the Working Group 3 of the COST Action IS1406. Responses were analysed quantitatively as a function of age, gender, education level and country using the t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA). OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Public awareness of DLD is still unsatisfactory in all three countries. Around 70% of respondents reported having heard of DLD; however, only around 20% of Croatian, 40% of Italian and 5% of Slovenian respondents provided an adequate definition of DLD. Differences in research and clinical traditions may explain the observed variations amongst the three countries. Education level was the only variable that was significantly associated with an awareness of DLD in Croatia and Italy: there, more educated people showed a higher awareness and more correct knowledge, which was not found in the Slovenian sample. Respondents generally perceived speech and language pathologists (SLPs) as the professionals responsible for recognizing DLD. Finally, people possess the highest awareness of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), while the awareness of DLD and other (neuro)developmental disorders is equally low. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: Public awareness of DLD varies substantially among the three countries, but there is space for improvement in each of them. The findings of this study build on the existing data from the international group of collaborators, and argue for well-planned, systematic awareness-raising activities in the region. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject DLD is one of the most common (neuro)developmental disorders, yet it is not well known to the general public. This low awareness hinders timely recognition and adequate intervention, which can have negative psychosocial and emotional consequences for affected individuals. It is known that the awareness of any disorder can depend on one's demographic characteristics, but levels of awareness of DLD are still not examined in detail. What this study adds to existing knowledge Public awareness of DLD is moderate in Croatia, Italy and Slovenia, but many individuals who report having heard of it appear to misunderstand what it actually is. Of various demographic factors tested, only education significantly influenced public awareness in Croatia and Italy, where more educated people possess greater knowledge. Moreover, respondents generally perceived SLPs as professionals responsible for recognizing DLD. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Professionals and researchers should focus on raising DLD awareness in the general public of these three countries, and may need to target different demographic groups accordingly.

How Does Toddlers' Engagement in Literacy Activities Influence Their Language Abilities?

The most intensive period of language development is during the first years of life, during which the brain is developing rapidly. Research has shown that children from disadvantaged households who received high-quality stimulation at a young age grew into adults who earned an average of 25% more than those who did not receive these interventions. In addition, it has been suggested that children who show a greater interest in literacy-related activities and voluntarily engage in them are likely to become better readers than children with less interest in literacy. These children's factors, along with their engagement in literacy activities, are important components in children's early literacy experiences and may affect their early language development. In this study, we examined associations among maternal education, home literacy environment (HLE), children's interest and engagement in literacy activities, and language development of 44 toddlers aged between 20 and 36 months. Overall, results showed that only children's engagement in literacy activities was related to vocabulary and morphosyntactic skills, whereas maternal education, HLE, and children's interests were not. These results suggest that taking advantage of individual children's interests by planning activities in which children are fully engaged, may be effective strategies for promoting children's oral language development.

Parental experiences of homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic: differences between seven European countries and between children with and without mental health conditions.

The aim of the present study was to examine parental experiences of homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic in families with or without a child with a mental health condition across Europe. The study included 6720 parents recruited through schools, patient organizations and social media platforms (2002 parents with a child with a mental health condition and 4718 without) from seven European countries: the UK (n = 508), Sweden (n = 1436), Spain (n = 1491), Belgium (n = 508), the Netherlands (n = 324), Germany (n = 1662) and Italy (n = 794). Many parents reported negative effects of homeschooling for themselves and their child, and many found homeschooling to be of poor quality, with insufficient support from schools. In most countries, contact with teachers was limited, leaving parents with primary responsibility for managing homeschooling. Parents also reported increased levels of stress, worry, social isolation, and domestic conflict. A small number of parents reported increased parental alcohol/drug use. Some differences were found between countries and some negative experiences were more common in families with a child with a mental health condition. However, differences between countries and between families with and without a mental health condition were generally small, indicating that many parents across countries reported negative experiences. Some parents also reported positive experiences of homeschooling. The adverse effects of homeschooling will likely have a long-term impact and contribute to increased inequalities. Given that school closures may be less effective than other interventions, policymakers need to carefully consider the negative consequences of homeschooling during additional waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics.

The Native Speaker in Italian-Dialects Bilingualism: Insights From the Acquisition of Vicentino by Preschool Children.

This paper investigates the bilingualism originating from the native competence of a standard language (Italian) and a vernacular non-standardized local dialect (henceforth, bilectalism). We report results on the comprehension and production of narrative stories by 44 3- to 5-year-old typically developing children exposed to both Italian and Vicentino from birth. Our findings show that all children produced and comprehended Italian. As for the dialect, children can comprehend Vicentino, despite not producing any dialectal element. The study further revealed an implicational scale in dialectal competence: if a child exhibits some productions with dialectal syntax, s/he also produces dialects at the phonological, morphological, and lexical levels. These findings are in line with the dialectological studies on adult speakers: dialectal competence should be arranged along a fine-grained continuum and the dialectal speaker should be considered as a multi-factorial notion. Our study extends this observation to children's dialectal acquisition.

Direct and Indirect Pathways of Variation in Length of Exposure to the Majority Language, Cognitive and Language Skills in Preschoolers' Listening Narrative Comprehension.

Listening narrative comprehension, according to the theoretical framework of the multicomponent model for comprehension, involves numerous skills that interact dynamically between each other and have the potential to give rise to individual differences in comprehension. The purpose of the current work was to define a comprehensive and complete multicomponent model of listening narrative comprehension in preschool age. We investigated how variation in Length of Exposure to majority Language (i.e., how long children have been exposed to the Italian language), lower-order cognitive (WM, inhibitory control, attention shifting), language skills (receptive vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, rapid naming), and higher-order cognitive skills (inferences, TOM, knowledge of story-structure) are related to listening narrative comprehension in Italian of 111 preschool children (Mage = 61 months; SD = 6.8) growing in a monolingual or multilingual context. Structural equation modeling results showed that the model explained 60% variance in listening narrative comprehension in Italian of children aged four to six and predicted the outcome both through direct and mediated paths, coherently with the multicomponent model of comprehension.

Reading for Comprehension in Individuals with Down Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development: Similar or Different Patterns of Ability?

Reading for meaning is one of the most important activities in school and everyday life. The simple view of reading (SVR) has been used as a framework for studies of reading comprehension in individuals with Down syndrome (DS). These tend to show difficulties in reading comprehension despite better developed reading accuracy. Reading comprehension difficulties are influenced by poor oral language. These difficulties are common in individuals with DS and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but they have never been compared directly. Moreover, the components of reading for comprehension have rarely been investigated in these populations: a better understanding of the nature of reading comprehension difficulties may inform both theory and practice. The aim of this study was to determine whether reading comprehension in the two populations is accounted for by the same component skills and to what extent the reading profile of the two atypical groups differs from that of typically developing children (TD). Fifteen individuals with DS (mean age = 22 years 4 months, SD = 5 years 2 months), 21 with ASD (mean age = 13 years 2 months, SD = 1 year 6 months), and 42 TD children (mean age = 8 years 1 month, SD = 7 months) participated and were assessed on measures of receptive vocabulary, text reading and listening comprehension, oral language comprehension, and reading accuracy. The results showed similar levels in word reading accuracy and in receptive vocabulary in all three groups. By contrast, individuals with DS and ASD showed poorer non-word reading and reading accuracy in context than TD children. Both atypical groups showed poorer listening and reading text comprehension compared to TD children. Reading for comprehension, investigated through a homograph reading accuracy task, showed a different pattern for individuals with DS with respect to the other two groups: they were less sensitive to meaning while reading. According to the SVR, the current results confirm that the two atypical groups have similar profiles that overlap with that of poor comprehenders in which poor oral language comprehension constrains reading for comprehension.

Path Learning in Individuals With Down Syndrome: The Challenge of Learning Condition and Cognitive Abilities.

Analyzing navigational abilities and related aspects in individuals with Down syndrome (DS) is of considerable interest because of its relevance to everyday life. This study investigates path learning, the conditions favoring it, and the cognitive abilities involved. A group of 30 adults with DS and 32 typically-developing (TD) children matched on receptive vocabulary were shown a 4 × 4 Floor Matrix and asked to repeat increasingly long sequences of steps by walking on the grid. The sequences were presented under two learning conditions, one called Oral instructions (participants received verbal instructions such as "turn right" or "turn left"), the other Observation (participants watched the experimenter's moves). Participants were also assessed on verbal and visuospatial cognitive measures. The results showed a similarly better performance in both groups when the Floor Matrix task was administered in the Observation as opposed to the Oral instructions condition. As for the relation with cognitive abilities, in the Floor Matrix task in the Oral instructions condition, individuals with DS showed an effect of both verbal and visuospatial abilities, which was only positive for verbal ability. The effect of verbal and visuospatial abilities was negligible in the TD group. In the Observation condition, performance was predicted by sequential working memory in both groups. Overall, these results shed light on path learning in individuals with DS, showing that they benefited from the Observation condition, and that the involvement of their cognitive abilities depended on the learning condition.

Parental stress during COVID-19: A brief report on the role of distance education and family resources in an Italian sample.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, school closures have affected over 1.5 billion children worldwide. Many countries implemented a rapid transition to distance education (DE), but the effects of such transition on family life remain largely underexplored. The current study used a cross-sectional, correlational survey design to explore the role of DE and family resources (parenting self-efficacy and family functioning) in perceived stress among Italian parents of first-grade children (N = 89). Results of hierarchical multiple regression indicated that, after controlling for stressful events experienced during school closure, parents' difficulty to manage children's DE was positively linked to levels of stress. However, this association became nonsignificant after adding family resources to the model, with more parental self-efficacy and good family functioning predicting less perceived stress. The findings underscore the importance of supporting positive resources within the family environment to reduce DE-related parental stress in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Distance Learning Effects Among Italian Children and Parents During COVID-19 Related School Lockdown.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, both children and their parents experienced consequences related to distance learning (DL). However, positive and negative effects have varied greatly among families, and the specific factors explaining these differences in experiences are still underexplored. In this study, we examined children's executive functions (EF) and parents' psychological well-being in relation to negative and positive effects of DL on both children and their parents. Method: Participants were 637 Italian parents (92% mothers) with a child (48% male) aged between 6 and 19 years involved in DL due to school closures during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected using an online survey. We performed three fixed-order hierarchical multiple regression analyses with child age and sex, children's EF deficits, and parents' psychological well-being as independent variables, and DL-related negative effects (on the child and on the parent) and DL-related positive effects as dependent variables. Results: The results of the regression analyses showed that for negative effects of DL, younger age and greater EF deficits explained most part of the variance. Specifically, regarding negative effects on children, the most important factor was EF deficits, whereas regarding negative effects on parents, child age was the most important factor. For positive effects of DL, all variables explained only a small part of the variance. Child age was the most important factor, but EF deficits and parents' psychological well-being also had a significant impact. Conclusions: The effects of DL during school closures vary widely across families. Our findings indicate that intervention efforts need to consider background variables, child factors, as well as parent factors when supporting families with homeschooling in times of pandemic.

Are the Effects of Variation in Quantity of Daily Bilingual Exposure and Socioeconomic Status on Language and Cognitive Abilities Independent in Preschool Children?

Bilingual exposure (BE) and socioeconomic status (SES) are associated with children's development, but their specific and unique effects are still unclear. This study analyzed the influence of these environmental factors on a set of cognitive and linguistic abilities in preschoolers to disentangle their effects. One hundred-eleven Italian-speaking preschool children (mean age = 61 months; SD = 6.8) growing in a monolingual or multilingual context completed an assessment of cognitive (theory of mind, inhibition, attention shifting and working memory) and linguistic abilities (vocabulary, grammar, narrative comprehension, lexical access). The results of hierarchical regressions with predictors variation in BE (both Length and Daily exposure) and SES on each ability, shown a specific contribution of variation in SES, after controlling for BE, in vocabulary, grammar, and working memory (WM), and a specific contribution of variation in BE, over and above effect of SES, in vocabulary, narrative comprehension and WM. In addition, we found an interaction between these factors in predicting the performance of the theory of mind task (ToM). To conclude, variations in BE and SES are related independently to individual differences in linguistic and cognitive skills of children in preschool.

Fostering Broad Oral Language Skills in Preschoolers from Low SES Background.

Socioeconomic disparities increase the probability that children will enter school behind their more advantaged peers. Early intervention on language skills may enhance language and literacy outcomes, reduce the gap and, eventually, promote school readiness of low-SES (Socioeconomic Status) children. This study aimed to analyze the feasibility and effectiveness of a brief narrative-based intervention (treatment vs. control group) aimed to foster broad oral language skills in preschoolers (N = 69; Mean age = 5.5, SD = 4 months) coming from low-SES families. Moreover, it was analyzed whether children's initial vocabulary mediates the intervention's responsiveness. Results have shown that children in treatment group obtained greater gains than children in control group in almost all intervention-based measures. There is also some evidence for the generalizability of the intervention to other skills not directly trained during the intervention. Moreover, it was found that children's initial vocabulary mediates the intervention's responsiveness showing that children with high vocabulary made greater gains in higher-level components of language comprehension, whereas children with low vocabulary made higher gains in vocabulary. Taken together, our findings suggest that a relatively brief, but quite intensive narrative-based intervention, may produce improvements on broad oral language skills in preschoolers from low-SES backgrounds.

How Individuals With Down Syndrome Process Faces and Words Conveying Emotions? Evidence From a Priming Paradigm.

Emotion recognition from facial expressions and words conveying emotions is considered crucial for the development of interpersonal relations (Pochon and Declercq, 2013). Although Down syndrome (DS) has received growing attention in the last two decades, emotional development has remained underexplored, perhaps because of the stereotype of high sociability in persons with DS. Yet recently, there is some literature that is suggesting the existence of specific deficits in emotion recognition in DS. The current study aimed to expand our knowledge on how individuals with DS process emotion expressions from faces and words by adopting a powerful methodological paradigm, namely priming. The purpose is to analyse to what extent emotion recognition in DS can occur through different processes than in typical development. Individuals with DS (N = 20) were matched to a control group (N = 20) on vocabulary knowledge (PPTV) and non-verbal ability (Raven's matrices). Subsequently a priming paradigm was adopted: stimuli were photos of faces with different facial expressions (happy, sad, neutral) and three words (happy, sad, neutral). On a computer screen the first item (face or word) was presented for a very short time (prime) and afterward a stimulus (face or word) appeared (target). Participants had to recognize whether the target was an emotion (sad/happy) or not (neutral). Four prime-target pairs were presented (face-word; word-face; word-word; face-word) in two conditions: congruent (same emotion prime/target) and incongruent (different emotion prime/target). The results failed to show evidence for differential processing during emotion recognition between the two groups matched for verbal and non-verbal abilities. Both groups showed a typical priming effect: In the incongruent condition, slower reaction times were recorded, in particular when the target to be recognized is the face, providing evidence that the stimuli were indeed processed. Overall, the data of the current work seem to support the idea of similar developmental trajectories in individuals with DS and TD of the same verbal and non-verbal level, at least as far as the processing of simple visual and linguistic stimuli conveying basic emotions is concerned. Results are interpreted in relation to recent finding on emotion recognition from faces and words in DS.

Language lateralisation measured across linguistic and national boundaries.

The visual half-field technique has been shown to be a reliable and valid neuropsychological measurement of language lateralisation, typically showing higher accuracy and faster correct responses for linguistic stimuli presented in the right visual field (RVF) than left visual field (LVF). The RVF advantage corresponds to the well-known dominance of the left hemisphere (LH) in processing language(s). However, clinical and experimental neuroscientists around the globe use different variations of the visual half-field paradigm, making direct comparisons difficult. The current study used a word/non-word visual half-field paradigm with translingual stimuli. In total, 496 participants from seven European countries were investigated: Belgium (64), England (49), Germany (85), Italy (34), The Netherlands (87), Norway (51), and Switzerland (126), covering six international languages (Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian). All language groups revealed a significant RVF/LH advantage in accuracy and reaction times that accounted for up to 26.1% of the total variance in performance. We found some variation in the degree of the RVF/LH advantage across language groups, accounting for a maximum of 3.7% of the total variance in performance. The RVF/LH advantage did not differ between subsamples speaking English, French or German as first or second languages or between monolingual and early/late bi/multilinguals. The findings suggest that the translingual lexical decision task (TLDT) is a simple but reliable measurement of language lateralisation that can be applied clinically and experimentally across linguistic and national boundaries.

In few words: linguistic gap but adequate narrative structure in preschool bilingual children.

The aim of this study was to compare linguistic and narrative skills of monolingual and bilingual preschoolers and to estimate linguistic predictors of the macro-structural level of narratives. A battery of linguistic measures in Italian was administered to sixty-four Monolinguals and sixty-four Early Bilinguals; it included Vocabulary, Phonological Awareness, Morphosyntactic Comprehension, Phonological Memory, Letter Knowledge, and Story Sequencing tasks. The narratives produced in the Story Sequencing task were coded. Bilinguals underachieved, compared to monolinguals, in vocabulary, phonological awareness and morphosyntactic comprehension; they also differed in Type and Token indexes and in free morphology, but not in the level of macro-structural complexity. Macro-structural parameters were predicted by Mean Length of Utterances in monolinguals, but not in bilinguals. Bilingual children are able to structure stories in their L2 with monolingual-like cohesive complexity, although 'in few words', that is, with weak L2 linguistic skills.

Noun and verb knowledge in monolingual preschool children across 17 languages: Data from Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT).

This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir, 2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish). The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0-6;11 living in 15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production. Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations.

Ratings of age of acquisition of 299 words across 25 languages: Is there a cross-linguistic order of words?

We present a new set of subjective age-of-acquisition (AoA) ratings for 299 words (158 nouns, 141 verbs) in 25 languages from five language families (Afro-Asiatic: Semitic languages; Altaic: one Turkic language: Indo-European: Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Slavic, and Romance languages; Niger-Congo: one Bantu language; Uralic: Finnic and Ugric languages). Adult native speakers reported the age at which they had learned each word. We present a comparison of the AoA ratings across all languages by contrasting them in pairs. This comparison shows a consistency in the orders of ratings across the 25 languages. The data were then analyzed (1) to ascertain how the demographic characteristics of the participants influenced AoA estimations and (2) to assess differences caused by the exact form of the target question (when did you learn vs. when do children learn this word); (3) to compare the ratings obtained in our study to those of previous studies; and (4) to assess the validity of our study by comparison with quasi-objective AoA norms derived from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI). All 299 words were judged as being acquired early (mostly before the age of 6 years). AoA ratings were associated with the raters' social or language status, but not with the raters' age or education. Parents reported words as being learned earlier, and bilinguals reported learning them later. Estimations of the age at which children learn the words revealed significantly lower ratings of AoA. Finally, comparisons with previous AoA and MB-CDI norms support the validity of the present estimations. Our AoA ratings are available for research or other purposes.

The role of linguistic context in deriving word meanings in individuals with Down Syndrome.

Deriving the meaning of unknown words from context and its relationship to text comprehension was investigated in 24 individuals with Down syndrome and in 24 typically developing children matched for the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) score. The study consisted of three phases. Unknown words were identified during the first phase (PPVT). Those words were presented embedded in brief linguistic contexts during the second phase. Recognition (maintenance) of word meanings was verified in the third and final phase. Both groups of participants recognized the meanings of a noteworthy number of words in contexts and a high percentage of these was maintained when they were presented at a later date without the support of context. Over and above group differences and basic linguistic skills, text comprehension seems to predict the ability to use context. Context provides the semantic information necessary to extract word meaning by activating relevant world knowledge.