First Language

First Language is an international peer reviewed journal that publishes the highest quality original research in child language acquisition. Child language research is multidisciplinary and this is reflected in the contents of the journal: research from diverse theoretical and methodological traditions is welcome. Authors from a wide range of disciplines - including psychology, linguistics, anthropology, cognitive science, neuroscience, communication, sociology and education - are regularly represented in our pages. Empirical papers range from individual case studies, through experiments, observational/ naturalistic, analyses of CHILDES corpora, to parental surveys.

The journal encourages submissions in all of the following areas: syntactic, semantic, morphological, phonological, and pragmatic development; language and cognitive development; language and social development; language and educational development; language of children with developmental disorders; exceptional language abilities; bilingual development; role of parental speech; interrelationships between language and nonverbal development; relationships between language and literacy; discourse analysis; socio-economic factors and language acquisition; preverbal communication; language development across different languages and cultures; language and ethnic development; measurement and analysis issues in child language research. Potential authors who are unsure of the relevance of their work to the journal's scope are welcome to contact the Editor directly for advice.

First Language operates a strictly blinded peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and the author’s name from the reviewer. Reviewers may at their own discretion opt to reveal their name to the author in their review but our default policy practice is for both identities to remain concealed.

Each manuscript is assessed initially by the Editor to determine that it is relevant to the journal’s Aims and Scope, and that it is consistent with the scientific and editorial standards of the journal. Papers which proceed beyond this initial scrutiny are reviewed by at least two referees. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, and an editorial decision is generally reached within 6 - 8 weeks of submission.

Occasionally, authors wish to indicate persons whom they believe would not be able to provide unbiased review. While choice of reviewers remains ultimately a matter of editorial discretion, we aim to comply with reasonable requests. Occasionally, authors wish to recommend specialist reviewers and are free to do so. Recommendations will be taken into account, though the Editor is likely to select at least one reviewer independently.

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)