Setting generalization of question-asking by children with autism.

We examined whether motivational procedures incorporated into teaching question-asking to children with autism, who lack verbal initiations, would result in generalization without additional teaching, prompting, or reinforcement in other settings. Specifically, we assessed whether such children could learn to use questions and whether the spontaneous use of question-asking would generalize across stimuli, settings, and people. All children learned to use questions in relation to items they had previously been unable to label and demonstrated generalization of spontaneous question-asking to new items and to their home environments with their mothers, with concomitant gains in expressive vocabulary. Results were discussed in terms of teaching response strategies, such as question-asking, to promote spontaneous child-initiated social interactions and expressive language development.

The effect of a diagnostic label of language delay on adults' perceptions of preschool children.

The effects of the label of expressive language disorder (ELD) on adults' perceptions of preschoolers were investigated. Twenty adults interacted with 3 children of typical development and one child previously diagnosed with ELD. Adults were randomly assigned to a label group (in which the child with ELD was identified) or a nonlabel group (in which the child with ELD was not identified). After interacting with dyads of children, adults ranked them according to behavioral characteristics and competencies. Results indicated that the nonlabel group ranked the child with ELD as significantly less likable and less productive, and they predicted less academic competence from her. In contrast, the label group did not differentiate the children behaviorally, but they predicted less social competence from the child with ELD. Implications regarding the use of labels in the inclusion of children with disabilities are discussed.

Family history in developmental expressive language delay.

Familial aggregation of language deficits has been demonstrated in previous studies. However, researchers have typically failed to differentiate subgroups of language-impaired children. The present study used questionnaire data to assess the family history of speech, language, and school problems in a group of young children with developmental expressive language delay (ELD) and in a sample of normally developing children. In contrast to previous studies of language and speech problems, no strong familial component of ELD was found. Further, family history was not predictive of later language development in ELD children. These findings argue against genetic and familial causes of ELD and attest to the importance of differentiating subtypes of early language problems.

The effects of incidental teaching on vocabulary acquisition by young children.

The effects on vocabulary acquisition of child-initiated versus adult-initiated instances of adult labeling were studied. 16 monolingual, English-speaking preschool children were exposed to a Spanish-speaking adult. In order to have access to toys placed out of their reach, children had to request the toys in Spanish. For the experimental group, adult labeling occurred when the children expressed interest in the toy. Control group children were yoked temporally to experimental group children for the purpose of adult labeling. Thus, adult labeling for the control group was randomly related to the children's expressions of interest. Although both groups of children learned some Spanish words, children in the experimental group produced significantly more Spanish words during the training sessions and showed superior performance on posttraining tests of Spanish production. Levels of comprehension of the Spanish words were equivalent for both groups. Results are interpreted in the context of the literature on "incidental teaching" and are viewed as demonstrating the critical role in language acquisition of the timing of exposure to language models.

What is the role of reinforcement in early language acquisition?

Monolingual American and Mexican 2- and 3-year-old children were exposed to a foreign language in a naturalistic but controlled environment. Children were randomly assigned to 2 groups. 1 group was differentially reinforced throughout the study for the use of foreign vocabulary. The control group was first reinforced nondifferentially for use of the native language or the foreign language and later was switched to differential reinforcement for the foreign language. Frequencies of spontaneous foreign word production and other verbal responses were computed, and formal assessments of comprehension and production of the foreign words were conducted. Differential reinforcement resulted in accelerating frequencies of spontaneous foreign language use and better performance on both comprehension and production tests. Under nondifferential reinforcement, rates of spontaneous foreign language use were low and static. Results are interpreted as evidence that the acquisition of expressive vocabulary is a function of socially mediated reinforcement.