The papers in this volume are revised versions of most of the contributions to the Language Loss Symposium which was held at the Rolduc Conference Centre, Kerkrade, the Netherlands, from March 10-14, 1986. The symposium was
financed by the European Cultural Foundation. The main aim of the event was to bring together researchers from different European countries who are engaged in language loss research - or planning to do so in the near future. The contributions mainly concern interim reports of ongoing research, but some focus on aspects of a more general nature. Thus, this volume reflects the state of the art - as it was in Spring 1986 - as represented by research from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Sweden, and Israel. In addition, two American contributions are included, which highlight the state of the art in the Language Skills Attrition Project, and discuss some of the methodological problems that language-attrition researchers find themselves confronted with.