Kevin Durkin, before setting out my vision for the journal's future. First Language published its first issue in February 1980. The editorial in that issue describes the journal's aims thus: … there is a gap, and an increasing one, between research studies in child language and the application of insights gained from these studies to teaching and therapy. Practitioners who are involved with first language skills are perhaps not as aware as they ought to be of recent ideas and trends in their subject and researchers are not sufficiently appraised of the problems of classroom and clinic. This journal is intended to help foster communication between researchers and practitioners by publishing articles of interest to both groups, representing ideas from both theory and practice in a way acceptable to both areas of activity.