Many children born with severe and multiple disabilities have complex communication needs and may use no speech or only minimal speech to communicate. Meaningful assessment of their expressive skills to identify communication strengths along a developmental trajectory is an essential first step toward appropriate intervention. This article…

Music therapists regard music therapy as a valuable intervention for students with moderate to severe intellectual disability or multiple disabilities, but many special educators would regard it as a controversial practice, unsupported by empirical research. This paper reviews the goals and strategies used by music therapists working with students…

Background: The outcomes of a pilot program of staff development in communication support in the context of observed changes in student behaviour states and interactive abilities are reported. Participant reports about the impact of the program on their professional practices are included. Method: Six teachers and six teacher aides in special…

The report describes preliminary results of a study investigating the merits of teaching five severely and multiply handicapped preschoolers to take the initiative during social interaction with an adult using signals/actions already in his/her repertoire. Such initiative was theorized as fundamental to the development of communicative,…

The paper raises issues identified by a study of the content and context of the education provided 568 deaf-blind children and 1,123 students with other disabilities by 124 teachers across the country. Results of the questionnaire indicated that 75% of teachers were serving students in addition to the deaf-blind; that only 5% of the students were…

One hundred interactions involving 4,231 communicative acts between classroom personnel and multiply disabled students were videotaped. The resulting data were coded and analyzed, and showed that: (1) conventional communicative forms (e.g., speech, manual signs, conventional nonverbal expressions) were selected to convey information to students…

This study evaluated the use of information technology (IT) communication tools with five British students (ages 3.5 to 17) having severe physical and learning disabilities. Four of the five students made progress in IT and social interaction skills. Discussion raises issues of strategies for effective use of IT by this population, teacher…

The education of children with visual impairments or blindness combined with other disabilities is increasingly recognized as one of the most compelling and challenging aspects of Special Education. We have come to recognize the multiple effects of combined sensory, neurological and/or psychological problems Visual and movement impairments impose…

A computerized symbol processor system using an Apple IIe computer and a Power Pad graphics tablet was tested with 22 nonspeaking, multiply disabled students. The students were taught to express themselves independently in writing, and they did significantly better than control students on measures of language comprehension and symbol recognition.…