Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) sometimes display an inability for information sharing through functional verbal communication. This may interfere with professional oral care. These children tend to process visual information more efficiently than auditory information. Picture schedules can briefly suffice as visual cues serving a…

Smartwatches may provide a natural, portable, and unobtrusive strategy by which to support directive-following for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A mentor can send visual supports (e.g., photographs, videos, text) "just-in-time" (JIT) to a learner's smartwatch. This may reduce the need for extraneous face-to-face…

Visual supports are recommended in autism spectrum disorder clinical guidelines. They can reduce anxiety, increase predictability, support communication and improve participation. They are implemented regularly in schools, but evidence about home visual supports is limited. This article reports results of a scoping literature review, alongside…

There is a significant increase of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); therefore, parents, educators, and specially trained instructional resource teachers need to come together to provide effective programming for these children. This paper provides a number of strategies and educational methods to assist educators in…

Individuals with low functioning autism spectrum disorders (LFASD) who demonstrate significant cognitive and communication needs benefit from using technology for learning graphic symbols for enhancing participation. This study investigated if an iPad application would increase identification of graphic symbols by children and adults with LFASD.…

Background: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may require interventions for communication difficulties. One type of intervention is picture communication symbols which are proposed to improve comprehension of linguistic input for children with ASD. However, atypical attention to faces and objects is widely reported across the autism…

The study investigated early years teachers' understanding and use of graphic symbols, defined as the visual representation(s) used to communicate one or more "linguistic" concepts, which can be used to facilitate science learning. The study was conducted in Cyprus where six early years teachers were observed and interviewed. The results…

A dual language learner (DLL) is a young child who is exposed to and is acquiring two or more languages. Multilingualism is common worldwide, and even in countries like the United States, the number of young children who are DLLs is rising rapidly (Goldstein, 2011; Toppelberg, Snow, & Tager-Flusberg, 1999). The purpose of this article is to:…

Many individuals with autism cannot speak or cannot speak intelligibly. A variety of aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) approaches have been investigated. Most of the research on these approaches has been single-case research, with small numbers of participants. The purpose of this investigation was to meta-analyze the single…

Despite expansive improvements in both treatments and research, the majority of persons with autism use non-empirically supported interventions. One way to decrease the research-to-practice gap involves increasing the direct applicability of research findings to clinical settings. Effectiveness research achieves this goal by identifying treatments…

Fifty-six studies from 1980 to 2007 involving the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) by individuals with autism were reviewed. The majority of the studies used single-subject research designs and emphasized language production skills. Many investigations were held in artificial language learning settings, and a few involved…