Trends and transitions in language development: Looking for the missing piece

In this article, we show that developmental neuropsychology can make signif icant inroads into the study of language acquisition. The Ist section descr ibes new methodological developments in the field of language acquisition, including the headturn preference procedure (e.g., Fernald, 1985; Hirsh-Pas ek et al., 1987) and the intermodal preferential looking paradigm (Golinkof f, Hirsh-Pasek, Cauley, & Gordon, 1987; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 1996a). Th e 2nd section shows how these new methods are altering our view of the proc ess of acquisition and placing more emphasis on the period prior to the eme rgence of speech. The 3rd section presents a profile of language acquisitio n, reviewing recent research in the areas of phonological, lexical, and syn tactic development. Using Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff's (1996a) coalition mod el as a base, we examine major transitions in the landscape of development. Finally, we conclude that the transitions observed in the behavioral data offer ripe opportunities for the use of convergent neuropsychological data.