To become successful readers, hearing children require competence in both decoding--the ability to read individual words, underpinned by phonological skills and letter-sound knowledge--and linguistic comprehension--the ability to understand what they read--underpinned by language skills, including vocabulary knowledge. Children who are born with a…

Growing evidence suggests that, as a group, many internationally adopted children catch up to their peers in terms of their language development by the time they reach their school-age years. Although this appears to be particularly true for children adopted during the first few years of life, it is not true for all internationally adopted…

This paper discusses the referential communication model, offers explanations for communication failure, presents evidence that even older elementary school children have difficulty in detecting ambiguity in messages, argues the need for a standardized test in this area, and surveys work with language-impaired groups and approaches to…

The validity of facilitated communication's effects are viewed from three perspectives, labeled as the plausible perspective, which is unexpected literacy; the skeptical perspective, which claims that social-communicative variables unintentionally influence intervention outcomes; and the enigmatic perspective, which neither rejects outright the…

A review of the literature regarding the training of parents as language facilitators for young language-handicapped children includes a description of the University of South Carolina Parent Training Program, which offers short-term training in desirable interactive styles, elicitation of appropriate language, and language facilitative…

This paper views effective communication as an essential component of appropriate social behavior, provides definitions and conceptualizations of social skills and social competence within academic contexts, and describes social skills assessment and intervention procedures for school-age children and youth with and without disabilities.…

This article reviews data on problems in communicative development of maltreated children and discusses their implications for practitioners concerned with communicative development. The influence of social class and cultural factors is examined, and the impact of child maltreatment on communicative development from infancy up to school age is…