This paper reviews a selection of doctoral theses on language learning and teaching completed in Spain between 2008 and 2010. A total of 16 theses have been identified as representative – in terms of the topics under investigation and the methodology employed – of the doctoral research undertaken in Spain. Current topics include the development of speaking skills, motivation, learner autonomy, ...

Many current generativist theorists suggest that young children possess the grammatical principles of inversion required for question formation but make errors because they find it difficult to learn language-specific rules about how inversion applies. The present study analyzed longitudinal spontaneous sampled data from twelve 2-3-year-old English speaking children and the intensive diary data...

The current work explored the conditions under which infants generalize spatial relationships from one event to another. English-learning 5-month-olds habituated to a tight- or loose-fit covering event dishabituated to a change in fit during a containment test event, but infants habituated to a visually similar occlusion event did not. Thus, infants' responses appeared to be driven by the physi...

This article deals with the phenomenon of overregularization in a language already extremely regular, i.e. Esperanto, in children who are learning it as their mother tongue together with one or two other national languages. It consists of an analysis of the diaries kept by Esperanto-speaking parents, tracing the development of five children who were brought up speaking Esperanto as one of their...

This study investigates spontaneous pretend play during a parent-child free play observation, and deferred imitation observed in an experimental setting in speaking and non-speaking children with autism in comparison to children with typical development. Both groups of children with autism showed a reduced level of deferred imitation compared to the typically developing group, but only the non-...