TITLE

Language Development in Preschool-Age Children Adopted From China

AUTHOR(S)

Roberts, Jenny A.; Pollock, Karen E.; Krakow, Rena; Price, Johanna; Fulmer, Kathleen C.; Wang, Paul P.

PUB. DATE

February 2005

SOURCE

Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research;Feb2005, Vol. 48 Issue 1, p93

SOURCE TYPE

Academic Journal

DOC. TYPE

Article

ABSTRACT

This study examined the language development of 55 preschool-age children adopted from China who had resided in their permanent homes for approximately 2 years or longer. Slightly over 5% of the children scored below average on 2 or more measures from a battery of standardized speech-language tests normed on monolingual English speakers. However, the vast majority scored within or well above the average range on 2 or more measures. Contrary to other reports on the language development of internationally adopted children, the results suggest that "second first language" acquisition proceeds rapidly in the majority of preschool-age children adopted as infants and toddlers. For the children in the sample who scored below average, results indicated that they were among the children who had been exposed to English for the least amount of time. The results of this study demonstrate both the robustness of the language system in the majority of adopted children from China as well as slower growth in a small subset of lower performers in the 1st years after adoption.

ACCESSION #

16431679

 

Related Articles

• LANGUAGE AND PLAY: A STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FUNCTIONS AND STRUCTURES IN THE LANGUAGE OF FIVE YEAR OLD CHILDREN. Teece, Cathleen // Language & Speech;Apr-Jun76, Vol. 19 Issue 2, p179 

  The play environment of young children offers many opportunities for an observer to discover for what reasons the children need in use language and also what kinds of language they use. Linguists often describe the patterning aspects of language. It is interesting that a functional analysis...

• FACILITATING THE DISAPPEARANCE OF PERCEPTUAL ERROR TO THE POGGENDORFF ILLUSION. Mallenby, Terry W. // Language & Speech;Apr-Jun76, Vol. 19 Issue 2, p193 

  Perceptual models, verbal mediation permits the flexible responses typical of adults. That is, with the advent of adulthood and language functioning, an individual is able to perform successively better with practice because the perceptual information processing mechanisms are not only more...

• Critical Consideration in Total Communication and an Environmental Intervention Model for the Developmentally Delayed. Lombardino, Linda J.; Willems, Sherry; MacDonald, James D. // Exceptional Children;Mar1981, Vol. 47 Issue 6, p455 

  Total communication is gaining widespread acceptance as an alternative or supplemental form of communication for language delayed hearing children for whom oral language training alone is inadequate. The authors address several issues pertinent to designing environmentally based total...

• HESITATION PHENOMENA IN CHILDREN'S SPEECH. Levin, Harry; Silverman, Irene // Language & Speech;Apr-Jun65, Vol. 8 Issue 2, p67 

  The article presents a study examining the hesitation forms in children's speech conducted in Ithaca, New York. The hesitation phenomenon refers to filled or unfilled pauses that occur in daily human conversation. The researchers focused on the variables of the phenomenon such as zero...

• Using an observational framework to investigate adult language input to young children in a naturalistic environment. Andersen, Claire Elizabeth; Marinac, Julie V. // Child Language Teaching & Therapy;Oct2007, Vol. 23 Issue 3, p307 

  The correlation between the communicative intent of parents, in terms of their expectation of a response and the response patterns of young children aged 23--25 months during parent--child interactions, was investigated. An Observational Framework was used to code these parameters in...

• Language Comprehension in the Moderately Retarded Child. Bartel, Nettle R.; Bryen, Diane; Keehn, Susan // Exceptional Children;Feb1973, Vol. 39 Issue 5, p375 

  The Carrow Auditory Test of Language Comprehension was administered to retarded trainable pupils attending public school special education classes (a) to evaluate the appropriateness of the Carrow test for use with trainable retarded children and (b) to compare the development of linguistic...

• EFFECTS OF PEER RELATIONSHIPS AND GENDER ON TURKISH CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE SKILLS. GULAY, HULYA // Social Behavior & Personality: an international journal;2011, Vol. 39 Issue 7, p979 

  The relationships among language skills, peer relationships, and gender were investigated with 236 Turkish children aged between 5 and 6 years. I found that aggression was not a significant predictor of language skills when controlling for gender. Prosocial behavior, asocial behavior, exclusion,...

• Code-switching in bilingual children with specific language impairment. Gutiérrez-Clellen, Vera F.; Simon-Cereijido, Gabriela; Leone, Angela Erickson // International Journal of Bilingualism;Mar2009, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p91 

  Children with specific language impairment (SLI) exhibit limited grammatical skills compared to their peers with typical language. These difficulties may be revealed when alternating their two languages (i.e., code-switching) within sentences. Fifty-eight Spanish—English speaking children...

• Relations Among Joint Attention, Amount of Intervention and Language Gain in Autism. Bono, Michael A.; Daley, Tamara; Sigman, Marian // Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders;Oct2004, Vol. 34 Issue 5, p495 

  The purpose of the present study was to investigate the unconditional and conditional relations between amount of intervention and language development in children with autism. Joint attention skills were proposed as child characteristics that might moderate this relation. The results replicated...

Read the Article