Language Development : An Introduction

Note: This is the bound book only and does not include access to the Enhanced Pearson eText. To order the Enhanced Pearson eText packaged with a bound book, use ISBN 0134092740.

This best-selling introduction to language development text offers a cohesive, easy-to-understand overview of all aspects of the subject, from syntax, morphology, and semantics, to phonology and pragmatics. Each idea and concept is explained in a way that is clear to even beginners in the field, and then reinforced with outstanding pedagogical aids such as discussion questions, chapter objectives, reflections, and main point boxed features. The book looks at how children learn to communicate in general and in English specifically, while emphasizing individual patterns of communication development. The new Ninth Edition of Language Development by Robert Owens continues the distribution of bilingual and dialectal development throughout the text; expands the discussion of children from lower-SES families, including those living in homeless shelters; makes substantial improvements in the organization and clarity of Chapter 4 on cognition and its relationship to speech and language; consolidates information on Theory of Mind in one chapter; improves readability throughout with more thorough explanations, simplification of terms, and increased use of headings and bullets; weeds out redundancies and asides to help streamline the reading; provides more child language examples throughout; and thoroughly updates the research, including the addition of several hundred new references. The Enhanced Pearson eText features embedded video.

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Robert E. Owens, Jr. Ph.D. (“Dr. Bob”) is an associate professor at the College of St. Rose in Albany, NY and a New York State Distinguished Teaching Professor. He teaches courses in language development and language disorders and is the author of Language Development, An Introduction (8 editions); Language Disorders, A Functional Approach (6 editions) Program for the Acquisition of Language with the Severely Impaired (PALS); Help Your Baby Talk, Introducing the New Shared Communication Method and Queer Kids, The Challenge & Promise for Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual Youth. His Language Development text is the most widely used in the world and has been translated into Spanish, Korean, and Arabic. He has also co-authored Introduction to Communication Disorders, A Life Span Perspective (5 editions), which has been translated into Mandarin and Korean, written a score of book chapters and professional articles, and authored two as-yet unpublished novels which are sure to win a posthumous Pulitzer prize. Currently, he is authoring a text on early intervention. In love with the sound of his own voice, Dr. Bob has presented over 190 professional papers and workshops around the globe. His professional interests are language disorders in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers who are also some of his best friends. And he’s a gran’pa!