Language Development, 3rd Edition

Erika Hoff's LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT communicates both the content and the excitement of this quickly evolving field. By presenting a balanced treatment that examines all sides of the issues, Hoff helps readers understand different theoretical points of view--and the research processes that have lead theorists to their findings.After an overview and history of the field, Hoff thoroughly covers the biological bases of language development and the core topics of phonological, lexical, and syntactic development. She also provides in-depth discussions of the communicative foundations of language, the development of communicative competence, language development in special populations, childhood bilingualism, and language development in the school years.

Erika Hoff is Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University. She has taught language development to undergraduate students for the past 15 years at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and, since 1996, at Florida Atlantic University. Dr. Hoff holds an M.S. in psychology from Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey (1976) and a Ph.D. in psychology from University of Michigan (1981). She conducts research on the process of language development in both typically developing children and children with language impairment, and she has received funding for this research from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Spencer Foundation. She has published her research in Child Development, Developmental Psychology, First Language, The Journal of Applied Psycholinguistics, The Journal of Child Language, and the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly. She has contributed chapters to LINGUISTIC DISORDERS AND PATHOLOGIES: AN INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK (1993), THE HANDBOOK OF PARENTING, (2002), THE HANDBOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY, and the MIT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMMUNICATION DISORDERS.