Developmental Psycholinguistics: On-line methods in children’s language processing(44 Language Acquisition and Language Disorders)

How do infants and young children coordinate information in real time to arrive at sentence meaning from the words and structure of the sentence and from the nonlinguistic context? This volume introduces readers to an emerging field of research, experimental developmental psycholinguistics, and to the four predominant methodologies used to study on-line language processing in children. Authored by key figures in psycholinguistics, neuroscience and developmental psychology, the chapters cover event-related brain potentials, free-viewing eyetracking, looking-while-listening, and reaction-time techniques, also providing a historical backdrop for this line of research. Multiple aspects of experimental design, data collection and data analysis are addressed in detail, alongside surveys of recent important findings about how infants and children process sounds, words, and sentences. Indispensable for students and researchers working in the areas of language acquisition, developmental psychology and developmental neuroscience of language, this volume will also appeal to speech language pathologists and early childhood educators.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction (by Sekerina, Irina A.); 2. List of contributors; 3. Behavioral methods for investigating morphological and syntactic processing in children (by Clahsen, Harald); 4. Event-related brain potentials as a window to children's language processing: From syllables to sentences (by Mannel, Claudia); 5. Using eye movements as a developmental measure within psycholinguistics (by Trueswell, John C.); 6. Looking while listening: Using eye movements to monitor spoken language comprehension by infants and young children (by Fernald, Anne E.); 7. What lurks beneath: Syntactic priming during language comprehension in preschoolers (and adults) (by Snedeker, Jesse); 8. Language acquisition research. A peek at the past: A glimpse into the future (by Cairns, Helen); 9. Index

Review :
As a collection of techniques to tap into online processing, this book makes a real contribution. It is a valuable snapshot of an increasingly prominent method of investigating language processing. The individual chapters work well to introduce the respective methodologies, especially in the specific problems facing developmental researchers interested in adapting such techniques children. It will work as a reference book, as a resource for experimental design, and as inspiration for increasingly complex investigations into language development. This volume is a very welcome addition to the literature. The main aim of the book is to provide practical instruction on a number of techniques, and it succeeds in doing so. As such, the book will appeal to current researchers ands students beginning to conduct on-line studies investigating children's language.