Milestones: Normal Speech and Language Development Across the Lifespan is a textbook for the introductory course in Language Development for students in Speech-Language Pathology, Communication Disorders, Special Education, Educational Psychology and Education. It adopts a coherent chronological approach, beginning with responsiveness to speech and language in the womb and working across the lifespan into maturity and beyond.
By using a chronological organization, the text helps students relate the material to the whole person at each milestone. It takes a constructive approach, starting with the simplest theoretical apparatus of the youngest infant, gradually increasing in complexity and comprehensiveness one milestone at a time. The organizational background becomes a series of narratives of interesting cases, keeping the theory and structure of language development grounded in real stories.
In the second edition, the authors have enhanced and updated the cutting-edge information on early language development, literacy acquisition, and some of the factors that can delay or even derail the normal progression. They have amplified innovations that students found useful in the first edition while updating the text with respect to current research and theory. The organization of the text has been streamlined, and some of the theory and research has been clarified and illustrated with additional or updated videographic illustrations.
The digital resources on the second edition DVD-ROM include:
- A complete Digital Summary of the whole book together with hyperlinked media and Internet resources referred to in the book
- A well-illustrated PowerPoint summary of each chapter with one or more videographic clips for every class meeting
- A Study Guide of Multiple Choice Questions containing 1,000 items (400 more than in the prior edition) linked in sequence, page-by-page and chapter-by-chapter, to the subject matter in the text
- A series of 10 Discussion Questions at the end of each chapter
- A digitally searchable Glossary of Technical Terms also containing brief biographies of major theoreticians, researchers, and innovators
- A searchable list of all the published and Internet references in the book
- An extensive index
The foundational chronology of basic milestones of development is essential information for speech-language pathologists and for educators working with preschoolers, as well as obstetricians, pediatricians, nurses, and professionals in the health sciences. The second edition of Milestones continues to lead the way in bringing this crucial information to successive new generations of students and future clinicians.
John W. Oller, Jr., Ph.D., has given a lifetime of study to language acquisition. He began his work as a professor at the University of California in Los Angeles. He went on to found the Department of Linguistics at the University of New Mexico and the Applied Language and Speech Sciences Ph.D. Program at the University of Louisiana.
Stephen D. Oller, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Program (in the Department of Biological and Health Sciences) at Texas A&M University-Kingsville.
Stacy Oller, M.S., has been practicing as a pediatric Speech Language Pathologist for 10 years. She received her B.A. from Louisiana State University and her M.S. from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.
