Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how well a cumulative risk approach, based on empirically supported predictive factors, predicts whether a young child who stutters is likely to develop persistent developmental stuttering. In a cumulative risk approach, the number of predictive factors indicating a child is at risk to develop…

Purpose: The aim of this study is to determine if there is a specific association between motor delays and receptive and expressive language function, respectively, in prematurely born children. Method: Retrospective data review: 126 premature children = 1,250-g birthweight from English-speaking families were evaluated on motor development…

Purpose: This study focused on developmental trajectories of prelinguistic communication skills and their connections to later parent-reported language difficulties. Method: The participants represent a subset of a community-based sample of 508 children. Data include parent reports of prelinguistic communication skills at 12, 15, 18, and 21 months…

Purpose: To evaluate joint engagement (JE) in age-matched children with and without hearing and its relationship to oral language skills. Method: Participants were 180 children with severe-to-profound hearing loss prior to cochlear implant surgery, and 96 age-matched children with normal hearing; all parents were hearing. JE was evaluated in a…

Purpose: Onset of canonical babbling by 10 months of age is surprisingly robust in infancy, suggesting that there must be deep biological forces that keep the development of this key vocal capability on course. This study further evaluated the robustness of canonical babbling and other aspects of prelinguistic vocal development. Method:…

Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the variability and predictors of expressive vocabulary development in children with autism and very delayed language. Method: This study involved 35 children with autism whose initial chronological ages were between 20 and 71 months and whose initial expressive vocabularies were less…

Purpose: The primary objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of late language emergence (LLE) and to investigate the predictive status of maternal, family, and child variables. Method: This is a prospective cohort study of 1,766 epidemiologically ascertained 24-month-old singleton children. The framework was an ecological model…

This study examined the relationship between prelinquistic vocalization and expressive vocabulary one year later in 58 toddlers (ages 17- to 34-months old). Rate of vocalizations, rate of vocalizations with consonants, and rate of vocalizations used interactively were all positively related to later expressive vocabulary. (Author/DB)

Late talkers with specific language impairment and developmental delay make up a large portion of our early childhood caseloads; therefore, an understanding of best clinical practices for these populations is essential. Early lexical learning was examined in 2 interactive treatment approaches with 29 late-talking preschoolers with language and…

A study examined long-term changes in articulation rate and phonetic phrase length in the conversational speech of two groups of preschool children (n=53) with speech delay. Follow-up at age 9 and at age 12-16 found articulation rates were improved from initial testing and were similar to typical children. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

This report presents findings supporting the hypothesis of a clinically relevant subtype of childhood speech sound disorder, provisionally titled speech delay--developmental psychosocial involvement (SD-DPI). Conversational speech samples from 29 children who met inclusionary criteria for SD-DPI were selected from a case record archive at a…