Paul Fletcher is Emeritus Professor, Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University College Cork,Ireland, where he was previously Professor. He has also held professorships at the University of Hong Kong and Reading University.Ciara O’Toole is Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy at the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University College Cork, Ireland. Her teaching and research interests are in the area of pediatric communication development and disorders. She has a particular interest in bilingual language acquisition.

• Companion Website viiPreface ix1 Overview 11.1 The Effects of Preschool Language Impairment 11.2 The Ambient Language 31.3 Typical Language Development 91.4 Atypical Language Development 212 The First Year of Life 332.1 Introduction 332.2 Social Development and Language Learning 352.3 Cognitive Development and Language Development 532.4 Speech Production in Infancy 612.5 Speech Perception in Infancy 712.6 Further Problems 803 Sounds 913.1 The Learning Task 913.2 The Role of Perception 943.3 The Production of Vowels 1023.4 The Production of Consonants 1143.5 Further Problems 1274 Words 1334.1 Early Vocabulary Development 1334.2 Learning to Label: First Steps 1384.3 Building a Lexicon 1484.4 Lexical Growth and Individual Differences 1524.5 Beyond Nouns 1574.6 A Bridge to Syntax 1634.7 Further Problems 1665 Combining Words 1755.1 Introduction 1755.2 Transcribing and Analyzing Language Samples 1775.3 Verb Forms 1935.4 Interrogatives: Asking Questions 2015.5 Complex Sentences 2125.6 Further Problems 2236 Beyond the Sentence 2296.1 Introduction 2296.2 Early Pragmatic Competence 2316.3 Discourse Skills 1: Conversations 2356.4 Discourse Skills 2: Telling Stories 2506.5 Presupposition 2566.6 Pragmatic Language Difficulties: Implications for Treatment 2586.7 Further Problems 261Appendix 1: The International Phonetic Alphabet 269Appendix 2: Reliability and Validity 271Appendix 3: Sensitivity and Specificity 275Appendix 4: Techniques for Exploring Speech Perception in Infants 277Appendix 5: Grammatical Analysis Using the LARSP Profile 279Index 291

"This publication meets the specific needs of speech and language therapy students by integrating language impairment and language development throughout the text...the text will be of use to student clinicians throughout their course and to qualified clinicians as they develop their paediatric practice, as well as to those in related areas. From the outset, readers are presented with knowledge and theories in an applied context, rather than being required to make the leap of application alone...an excellent resource for all involved with teaching and learning in this area." - Lorette Porter, First Language, 2017“…merits a place on a list of core texts. Its structure, focus and emphasis on self-directed learning resonate well with the competencies required of autonomous professionals and make it a valuable addition to the resources available to further our understanding of the skills and competencies of young children as they navigate the world of language and communication.” - the Journal of Clinical Language Studies