I consider it an honour to have been asked to serve as editor of JCL, one of the long-standing and core journals in our field. JCL has a solid and growing Impact Factor and an impressive volume size with 6 issues each year. With early online publication – FirstView, green open access policy for all articles, an option for authors to choose full open access at a competitive fee, and the continued production of print copies, JCL offers a healthy mix of both traditional and innovative publishing practices. The breadth of papers published in JCL is one its greatest strengths. Among the top 10 cited JCL articles for the 2014 Impact Factor, there are papers on bilingual and monolingual children, typically-developing children and children with developmental disorders, children learning European and non-European languages. I intend for JCL to continue to be a venue where there is diversity in the populations of children studied because a comprehensive understanding of language development in all children depends on such diversity.
Special issue in 2016
I am delighted to announce that in the 2016 volume of JCL, we will include a special issue on Age of Acquisition Effects in Child Language, with Elma Blom and myself as co-editors. While age of acquisition effects have been researched extensively in adult second language acquisition, there is less research focussed on examining age of acquisition effects in child language acquisition. This issue will consist of papers examining rate, patterns and mechanisms of development in a language children were not exposed to at birth, for example children who are early second language learners and children with cochlear implants. We are confident this set of papers will generate a lively debate about the relative contribution of age of acquisition versus input factors in child language development.
Changes in the editorial and review process
Even in an established and well-run journal, there is always room for improvement in the process. In response to feedback from authors about turnaround times, in the fall of 2015, we have put in place a series of minor changes at every step of the process from submission to final decision. These changes are designed to streamline the review process to reduce the time to final decision. Also in the fall of 2015, we started reviewing and revising the JCL style sheet in order to bring it up to date and closer to APA style, which should facilitate manuscript preparation.
Changes in the editorial team
I am taking over the editorship from Heike Behrens (University of Basel), who has steered the ship since 2011 and whose sage advice has smoothed my transition to editor and provided me with an excellent model of cooperative leadership. Three associate editors will be finishing their terms by the end of 2015: Misha Becker (University of North Carolina), Aylin Küntay (Koç University) and Carol Stoel-Gammon (University of Washington). New associate editors in 2016 will be Elma Blom (Utrecht University), Cecile DeCat (University of Leeds) and Melissa Soderstrom (University of Manitoba) and Laura Wagner (Ohio State University), joining Caroline Rowland (University of Liverpool), Holly Storkel (University of Kansas) and Elizabeth Wonnacott (University of Warwick). On behalf of Heike Behrens and myself, I would like to express our immense appreciation to the outgoing members for their dedication and hard work and give a warm welcome to the new members of the team.
