This book is a valuable resource for all speech language therapists, teachers and support assistants working with children in schools and community clinics. It provides practical, step-by-step photocopiable programmes to help with specific language concepts, such as amount, colour, size, time and shape. The programmes are intended for speech language therapists to copy and send to the school where staff can deliver the programmes, although they can be used by the therapist themselves. Clearly set out, the exercises can be personalised for each child and are graded so that the therapist can select and copy the sheets relevant to the child's needs. Each programme introduces the concept, teaches it and then checks to see if the child understands it. There is also practical advice on setting up therapy programmes in schools, such as setting up appointments, working in the school with children, staff and parents, covering letters to send with the programme, how to write programmes and many other useful tips.

Concepts embody our knowledge of the kinds of things there are in the world. Tying our past experiences to our present interactions with the environment, they enable us to recognize and understand new objects and events. Concepts are also relevant to understanding domains such as social situations, personality types, and even artistic styles. Yet like other phenomenologically simple cognitive processes such as walking or understanding speech, concept formation and use are maddeningly complex. Research since the 1970s and the decline of the "classical view" of concepts have greatly illuminated the psychology of concepts. But persistent theoretical disputes have sometimes obscured this progress. The Big Book of Concepts goes beyond those disputes to reveal the advances that have been made, focusing on the major empirical discoveries. By reviewing and evaluating research on diverse topics such as category learning, word meaning, conceptual development in infants and children, and the basic level of categorization, the book develops a much broader range of criteria than is usual for evaluating theories of concepts.

How do children learn that the word "dog" refers not to all four-legged animals, and not just to Ralph, but to all members of a particular species? How do they learn the meanings of verbs like "think," adjectives like "good," and words for abstract entities such as "mortgage" and "story"? The acquisition of word meaning is one of the fundamental issues in the study of mind. According to Paul Bloom, children learn words through sophisticated cognitive abilities that exist for other purposes. These include the ability to infer others' intentions, the ability to acquire concepts, an appreciation of syntactic structure, and certain general learning and memory abilities. Although other researchers have associated word learning with some of these capacities, Bloom is the first to show how a complete explanation requires all of them. The acquisition of even simple nouns requires rich conceptual, social, and linguistic capacities interacting in complex ways. This book requires no background in psychology or linguistics and is written in a clear, engaging style. Topics include the effects of language on spatial reasoning, the origin of essentialist beliefs, and the young child's understanding of representational art. The book should appeal to general readers interested in language and cognition as well as to researchers in the field.

In Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development, Frank C. Keil provides a coherent account of how concepts and word meanings develop in children, adding to our understanding of the representational nature of concepts and word meanings at all ages. Keil argues that it is impossible to adequately understand the nature of conceptual representation without also considering the issue of learning. Weaving together issues in cognitive development, philosophy, and cognitive psychology, he reconciles numerous theories, backed by empirical evidence from nominal kinds studies, natural-kinds studies, and studies of fundamental categorical distinctions. He shows that all this evidence, when put together, leads to a better understanding of semantic and conceptual development. The book opens with an analysis of the problems of modeling qualitative changes in conceptual development, investigating how concepts of natural kinds, nominal kinds, and artifacts evolve. The studies on nominal kinds document a powerful and unambiguous developmental pattern indicating a shift from a reliance on global tabulations of characteristic features to what appears to be a small set of defining ones. The studies on natural kinds document an analogous shift toward a core theory instead of simple definition. Both sets of studies are strongly supported by cross cultural data. While these patterns seem to suggest that the young child organizes concepts according to characteristic features, Keil argues that there is a framework of conceptual categories and causal beliefs that enables even very young children to understand kinds at a deeper, theoretically guided, level. This account suggests a new way of understanding qualitative change and carries strong implications for how concepts are represented at any point in development. A Bradford Book

This book uses a functional programming language (F#) as a metalanguage to present all concepts and examples, and thus has an operational flavour, enabling practical experiments and exercises. It includes basic concepts such as abstract syntax, interpretation, stack machines, compilation, type checking, garbage collection, and real machine code. Also included are more advanced topics on polymorphic types, type inference using unification, co- and contravariant types, continuations, and backwards code generation with on-the-fly peephole optimization. This second edition includes two new chapters. One describes compilation and type checking of a full functional language, tying together the previous chapters. The other describes how to compile a C subset to real (x86) hardware, as a smooth extension of the previously presented compilers.The examples present several interpreters and compilers for toy languages, including compilers for a small but usable subset of C, abstract machines, a garbage collector, and ML-style polymorphic type inference. Each chapter has exercises. Programming Language Concepts covers practical construction of lexers and parsers, but not regular expressions, automata and grammars, which are well covered already. It discusses the design and technology of Java and C# to strengthen students’ understanding of these widely used languages.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

In a diverse society, the ability to cross communication barriers is critical to the success of any individual personally, professionally, and academically. With the constant acceleration of course programs and technology, educators are continually being challenged to develop and implement creative methods for engaging English-speaking and non-English-speaking learners. Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a vital reference source that examines the relationship between language education and technology and the potential for curriculum enhancements through the use of mobile technologies, flipped instruction, and language-learning software. This multi-volume book is geared toward educators, researchers, academics, linguists, and upper-level students seeking relevant research on the improvement of language education through the use of technology.

"Follow along with Little Fox as he plans a surprise picnic for his friend Owl,"--

The increased use of sophisticated mobile devices opens up new possibilities and challenges for language teachers and learners, which has led to an increasing need to consider issues relating to mobile technologies specifically. To date, there is no comprehensive book-length treatment of issues relating to mobile-assisted language learning (MALL). This book fills that gap, providing a resource for present and future language teachers, and for graduate students of applied linguistics and TESOL, to understand how mobile devices can best be used for language teaching. It is founded on existing research, practice and theory, and offers a balanced perspective, based on the author's own experiences with mobile learning - considering the limitations of such an approach, as well as the benefits. Written in a practical and approachable tone, it provides a much-needed guide to MALL, and its fascinating insights promote further debate within the field.

For years, language teachers have increasingly been using technologies of all kinds, from computers to smartphones, to help their students learn. Current trends in TELTL (technology-enhanced language teaching and learning), such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, gamification, and social networking, appear to represent major shifts in the digital language learning landscape. However, various applications of technology to mediate language learning may be informed by reflecting not only on the present but perhaps more importantly on relevant insights from past research and practice. Emerging Concepts in Technology-Enhanced Language Teaching and Learning explores the recent development of the new technologies for language teaching and learning to gain insights into and synergy of the theories, pedagogies, technological design, and evaluation of TELTL environments for comprehending the trends and strategies of the new digital era as well as investigate the possibility of future TELTL research direction. The book includes trends shaped by contemporary issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Covering topics such as digital education tools, L2 learnings, and sentiment analysis, this book serves as an essential resource for researchers, language teachers, educational software developers, administrators, IT consultants, technologists, professors, pre-service teachers, academicians, and students.