This descriptive study examined the extratextual utterances of 10 special education teachers as they engaged in shared reading with groups of their students with extensive support needs (ESN) in special education classrooms. The independent variables were grade band (i.e., elementary, middle, high) and students' expressive language (i.e., high…

Although metaphors are essential tools in everyday communication and educational settings, the literature lacks evidence of effective training tools to promote metaphor comprehension in typical development. Grounding in theoretical pragmatics, we developed a novel metaphor comprehension training (MetaCom) for school-age children that focuses on…

Objectives: This study investigates the effects of assistive technology on improving communication skills of children with autism. Methods: Twelve children with autism (mean age=8 years) randomly assigned to either experimental groups or a control group (n=4 per group). The study confirmed validity and stability for the language skills scale for…

Background: The assessment of the intelligence quotient (IQ) in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is important to plan a detailed therapeutic-educative programme. The aim of the study was to evaluate the usefulness of the Psychoeducational Profile-third edition (PEP-3) to estimate the general cognitive development of children with ASD.…

Background: Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) show a disharmonic linguistic profile with a clear pattern of strengths and weaknesses. Despite their sociable nature, atypical socio-communicative abilities and deficits in communication and relationship with others have been found. Aim: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether…

The current study compared adaptive and cognitive skills, and autism severity of toddlers with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis under DSM-IV but not DSM-5 criteria (DSM-IV only group) to those who met autism criteria under both diagnostic systems (DSM-5 group) and to those without ASD (non-ASD group). The toddlers in the DSM-IV only…

Retrospective studies indicate 2 major classes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) onset: early and later, after a period of relatively healthy development. This prospective, longitudinal study examined social, language, and motor trajectories in 235 children with and without a sibling with autism, ages 6-36 months. Children were grouped as: ASD…

This study investigated the relationship between structural language skills, and communication skills, adaptive behavior, and emotional and behavior problems in pre-school children with autism. Participants were aged 3-5 years with autism (n = 27), and two comparison groups of children with developmental delay without autism (n = 12) and typically…

Background: The rising prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) increases the need for evidence-based behavioral treatments to lessen the impact of symptoms on children's functioning. At present, there are no curative or psychopharmacological therapies to effectively treat all symptoms of the disorder. Early intensive behavioral intervention…

Background: This study investigates the use of requests for clarification in conversations between teenagers with a cochlear implant (CI) and hearing peers. So far very few studies have focused on conversational abilities in children with CI. Aims: The aim was to explore co-construction of dialogue in a referential communication task and the…

This quasi-experimental study evaluated the effects of a supplementary preschool classroom music and movement curriculum on Head Start children's language skills. The curriculum consisted of sequenced music and movement activities conducted by outside interventionists. The evaluation compared the language skills of children attending either…

Studies are needed to better understand the broad autism phenotype in young siblings of children with autism. Cognitive, adaptive, social, imitation, play, and language abilities were examined in 42 non-autistic siblings and 20 toddlers with no family history of autism, ages 18-27 months. Siblings, as a group, were below average in expressive…

This study assessed the relation between pre-intervention variables (cognition, socialization and communication) to outcome in young children with autism. Method: Twenty five children with autism (20-32 months) were enrolled in intensive behavior intervention. The children were divided into groups based on their IQ scores and on the severity of…

Examined various kinds of sending-receiving relationships. Males (N=10) and females (N=10) served as both senders and receivers of nonverbal expressions. Females were found to be significantly better receivers but not significantly better senders than males. (Author/RC)

This booklet contains information on the Languages of the Disciplines Project, a federally funded program that seeks to identify the problems in receptive communication encountered by beginning university students in specific disciplines and the techniques for helping these students overcome their problems. The first section of the booklet notes…