Deferred imitation and early social communication skills were compared among speaking and nonspeaking children with autism and children developing typically. Overall, the children with autism showed a lower frequency on measures of deferred imitation and social communication compared with typically developing children. Deferred imitation was…

Research into reading development and reading disabilities has been dominated by phonologically guided theories for several decades. In this volume, the authors of 11 chapters report on a wide array of current research topics, examining the scope, limits and implications of a phonological theory. The chapters are organized in four sections. The…

The purpose of this study was to explore changes in activation of the cortical network that serves auditory sentence comprehension in children in response to increasing demands of complex sentences. A further goal is to study how individual differences in children's receptive language abilities are associated with such changes in cortical…

Data on disfluencies in the speech of non-stuttering adults are relevant to several aspects of the assessment and treatment of adults who stutter. Currently, very few sources provide relevant data. In the existing literature on normally fluent speakers, there is no consistency in sample length or topic or in which types of disfluency are counted.…

Offers speech-language clinicians a framework for team decision making and service delivery by encouraging speech-language pathologists and their colleagues to consider the unique combination of providers, activities, and contexts (PACs) necessary to meet the specific needs of each individual with a communication disorder. Sample cases involving…

This paper translates research findings on systematic preference assessment with individuals with nonsymbolic or limited symbolic communication skills into guidelines for planning such assessments to reduce the risk of missing or misinterpreting the person's preferences. It offers four questions for guiding the planning of preference assessments,…

This volume examines the ramifications of individual differences in therapy outcomes for a wide variety of communication disorders. In an era where evidence-based practice is the clinical profession's watchword, each chapter attacks this highly relevant issue from a somewhat different perspective. In some areas of communication disorders,…

The study explored whether children with high functioning autism (HFA), Asperger syndrome (AS), and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) can be differentiated on the Children's Communication Checklist (CCC). The study also investigated whether empirically derived autistic subgroups can be identified with a cluster…

Potential individual variations in the effectiveness of facilitated communication (FC) were examined with 20 students with autism and related disorders. Use of multiple methods (including auditory or visual input, simple point responses, and typing) provided no clear support for validity of FC over students' independent communication. Increased…