Constraints on Language Acquisition

• Contents: H. Tager-Flusberg, Contributions to the Field of Language Acquisition from Research on Atypical Children. J. de Villiers, P. de Villiers, E. Hoban, The Central Problem of Functional Categories in the English Syntax of Oral Deaf Children. Y. Levy, N. Amir, R. Shalev, Morphology in a Child with a Congenital Left-Hemisphere Brain Lesion: Implications for Normal Acquisition. H.M. Feldman, Language Development After Early Unilateral Brain Injury: A Replication Study. A.E. Fowler, R. Gelman, L.R. Gleitman, The Course of Language Learning in Children with Down Syndrome: Longitudinal and Language Level Comparisons with Young Normally Developing Children. R. Cromer, A Case Study of Dissociations Between Language and Cognition. J.A. Rondal, Exceptional Cases of Language Development in Mental Retardation: The Relative Autonomy of Language as a Cognitive System. H. Tager-Flusberg, Dissociations in Form and Function in the Acquisition of Language by Autistic Children. A.M. Peters, The Interdependence of Social, Cognitive, and Linguistic Development: Evidence from a Visually Impaired Child.

"The descriptive data are interesting and should be required supplementary reading for all language researchers."—Child Development Abstracts & Bibliography"The articles are well written....most valuable (and is highly recommended) for graduate students and researchers or faculty members in a variety of fields, such as linguistics, psychology, and education."—CHOICE"The development of grammar in severely impaired children who face biological and environmental constraints in their acquisition of language is described in this excellent collection of papers....Speech and language therapists who are interested in studying a complex client in greater detail, as well as post-graduate students in the fields of psychology, linguistics, and/or speech sciences will find this book an invaluable source of useful clinical data and creative ideas for research."—Child Language Teaching and Therapy"This excellent collection of papers represents a significant contribution to the field of language acquisition study, and to the debate on the nature of the language acquisition process itself and the issue of modularity."—First Language"...likely to be of considerable interest to researchers interested in exploring modularity and plasticity in SLA."—Studies in Second Language Acquisition