Children with autism spectrum disorder often demonstrate difficulty communicating with others, and this may affect the extent to which they can engage in contextually appropriate language during play. This study examined the effects of a social script-training intervention using generic picture cues on the number of contextually appropriate play…

The generalisation of linguistic constructions is performed through analogical reasoning. Children with developmental language disorders (DLD) are impaired in analogical reasoning and in generalisation. However, these processes are improved by an input involving variability and similarity. Here we investigated the performance of children with or…

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often demonstrate difficulty communicating with others, and this may impact the extent to which they can engage in language during play. Previous researchers have used interventions to increase commenting during play with caregivers, siblings, and adult play partners. In these previous studies,…

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to evaluate implicit learning in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) by employing a visual artificial grammar learning task. Method: Thirteen children with DLD and 24 children with typical language development between the ages of 8 and 12 years completed a visual artificial grammar learning…

Mirror invariance or generalisation is the ability to recognise objects as being the same regardless of their spatial orientation. However, when, for example, learning to read Roman script, children need to hone these skills so that they can readily discriminate between mirror letters such as b/d or p/b. Korean Hangul makes a particularly…

Testing of previously studied information potentiates subsequent learning of new information, a phenomenon referred to as the "forward testing effect" (FTE). The current study aimed to investigate the developmental trajectory of the FTE and whether the reset-of-encoding process contributes to the FTE. Younger children, older children,…

Motor learning principles guide treatment of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Previous studies found children to benefit from higher-intensity conditions; however, they did not control for the total amount of therapy time. The aims of the article are to examine the effects of high versus low treatment frequency in intervention for CAS in…

The article presents a typology of statements that can be made about discourse data. The classification is based on two parameters: level of generality and level of interpretation. Each of these is operationalized into three discrete levels, to yield a nine-cell table containing types of statements going from the presentation of a single case to…

Background: There is a need to develop effective interventions and to compare the efficacy of different interventions for children with residual speech-sound errors (RSSEs). Rhotics (the r-family of sounds) are frequently in error American English-speaking children with RSSEs and are commonly targeted in treatment. One treatment approach involves…

We evaluated the effects of tact training when instruction was presented in English only compared to tact training in a bilingual format (in English and the home language, Portuguese) for a participant diagnosed with a communication disorder. The participant's parents completed a questionnaire describing his exposure to both languages prior to the…

Although low levels of memory strategy use have been found in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), few studies have explored the effectiveness of interventions for improving strategy use with this population. In two studies, we examined the short- and longer term effectiveness of rehearsal strategy training. In Study 1, children with…

Purpose: This randomized controlled trial compared the experimental Rapid Syllable Transition (ReST) treatment to the Nuffield Dyspraxia Programme-Third Edition (NDP3; Williams & Stephens, 2004), used widely in clinical practice in Australia and the United Kingdom. Both programs aim to improve speech motor planning/programming for children…

We investigated whether low-functioning children with autism generalise labels from colour photographs based on sameness of shape, colour, or both. Children with autism and language-matched controls were taught novel words paired with photographs of unfamiliar objects, and then sorted pictures and objects into two buckets according to whether or…

Background: There is variability in the language of children with autism, even those who are high functioning. However, little is known about how they process language structures in real time, including how they handle potential ambiguity, and whether they follow referential constraints. Previous research with older autism spectrum disorder (ASD)…

This study aimed to examine whether or not there was any difference in the effectiveness and efficiency of the presentation of video modeling interventions using peer and adult models in teaching pretend play skills to children with ASD and to examine the views of parents about the study. Participants were two boys and one girl, aged 5-6 years…