Effective communication requires an understanding of the interlocutor's perspective. Being able to infer someone else's knowledge about a situation is a critical skill in any communication and social interaction. These abilities are part of Theory of Mind (ToM) skills and are known to be impaired in Down syndrome (DS). It therefore makes sense to…

In this large-scale study of students from Title 1 schools (N = 14,773), we used multiple-group latent change score (LCS) modeling to investigate the developmental relations between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in students with a school-identified learning disability (LD; n = 627) and typically developing students (n = 14,146).…

Today, the use of formal preference assessments, including paired-stimulus preference assessments, is widely utilized to help determine which items to use as reinforcers during intervention. A second way to determine potential reinforcers is to analyze multiple dimensions of a stimulus in the moment, a procedure known as in-the-moment reinforcer…

Purpose: Counting and exact arithmetic rely on language-based representations, whereas number comparison and approximate arithmetic involve approximate quantity-based representations that are available early in life, before the first stages of language acquisition. The objective of this study was to examine the impact of language abilities on the…

This study explored the effects of an evidence-based literacy program, ABRACADABRA, on the spelling abilities of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Twenty children with ASD aged 5-11 years were assigned to matched instruction and waitlist control groups. Children in the instruction group received 26 hrs of individualized, home-based…