Background: Children with speech sound disorders (SSD) form a heterogeneous group, with respect to severity, etiology, proximal causes, speech error characteristics, and response to treatment. Infants develop speech and language in interaction with neurological maturation and general perceptual, motoric, and cognitive skills in a social-emotional…

Language development has long been associated with motor development, particularly manual gesture. We examined a variety of motor abilities--manual gesture including symbolic, meaningless and sequential memory, oral motor control, gross and fine motor control--in 129 children aged 21 months. Language abilities were assessed and cognitive and…

Aims: The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) potentially causes a significant encephalopathy and resultant developmental delay in infected children. The aim of this study was to determine whether a home-based intervention programme could have an impact on the neurodevelopmental status of children infected with HIV. Method: A longitudinal,…

Jaw movement patterns were examined longitudinally in a 3-year-old male with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) and compared with a typically developing control group. The child with CAS was followed for 8 months, until he began accurately and consistently producing the bilabial phonemes /p/, /b/, and /m/. A movement tracking system was used to…

Down syndrome is the most common genetic cause of mental retardation and one of the most frequently occurring neurodevelopmental genetic disorders in children. Children with Down syndrome typically experience a constellation of symptomology that includes developmental motor and language delay, specific deficits in verbal memory, and broad…

In this study we examined early motor, vocal, and communicative development in a group of younger siblings of children diagnosed with autism (Infant Siblings). Infant Siblings and no-risk comparison later-born infants were videotaped at home with a primary caregiver each month from 5 to 14 months, with follow-up at 18 months. As a group, Infant…

The durational characteristics of novel words produced in repeated trials were evaluated in separate groups of children with, and without speech delay (SD). Children produced disyllabic novel words containing either a trochaic or iambic stress pattern. Results of acoustic analysis indicated a significant interaction between trial number and…

Motor control has long been associated with language skill, in deficits, both acquired and developmental, and in typical development. Most evidence comes from limb praxis however; the link between oral motor control and speech and language has been neglected, despite the fact that most language users talk with their mouths. Oral motor control is…

Thirty-five maltreated children (mean age 36 months) who received treatment in a therapeutic day program had significantly higher developmental scores in five areas -- fine motor, cognitive, gross motor, social/emotional, and language -- than did maltreated children not receiving the treatment. (Author/DB)

The presentation reviews the evolution of a summer special education assessment team. The interdisciplinary team grew from a due process specialist and occupational therapist to include a speech clinician. Their roles changed from processing students for special education to facilitating the transition of students and their families from private…

The report describes the development and field testing of the Early Social-Communication Scales (ESCS), a measure intended to reflect developmental dimensions of the at-risk infant's and toddler's adaptive interactions. The ESCS was designed to assess three major communicative functions (social interaction, joint attention, and behavior…

Each child In Finland and in Estonia receives preschool training for a year before going to school, based on a new national framework curriculum of preschool education. The aim of the present study was to compare children's learning achievements in nine target areas, based on the teacher's evaluations at the end of the preschool year, in both…