Purpose: The current study examined the predictive role of gestures and gesture-speech combinations on later spoken language outcomes in minimally verbal (MV) autistic children enrolled in a blended naturalistic developmental/behavioral intervention (Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation [JASPER] + Enhanced Milieu Teaching…

In 2002, Fan and his colleagues developed the Attention Network Test (ANT), a cognitive tool that provides a score for each of the attentional networks (alerting, orienting, and executive functioning). Since publication, this study has been cited over 3,500 times. The authors state one of the indicated uses of this tool is to measure how different…

Communication Complexity Scale (CCS) scores for 269 minimally verbal participants were examined to determine if communicator behavior and task and communicator characteristics were related to scores in a manner consistent with theoretical and research evidence expectations. Each participant completed an interactive assessment with 6 joint…

Although social impairments are considered the hallmark deficit of autism, many behavioral intervention studies rely on cognitive functioning as a primary outcome. Fewer studies have examined whether changes in cognition are associated with changes in social functioning. This study examined whether cognitive gains among 192 students from 47…

Background: There is evidence to suggest a relationship between the way in which staff perceive challenging behaviour and burnout in staff working with people with intellectual disabilities (ID) and challenging behaviour. However, the evidence of a direct link is equivocal and it is possible that a number of different variables mediate this…

Background: People with schizophrenia show impairments in metacognitive function, including awareness and monitoring of one's mental processes (Self-Reflectivity (SR)), recognition of the fallibility of one's thoughts, and the ability to infer others' emotions and intentions (Theory of Mind (ToM)). The aim of the present study was to explore…

The study assessed the prevalence and predictors of post-traumatic symptomatology and emotional and behavioral difficulties in siblings of children who incurred war-related injuries. It was predicted that injury severity, gender and attributional style would account for a significant amount of the variance in post-traumatic stress symptoms and…

Z. V. Segal et al. (2006) demonstrated that depressed patients treated to remission through either antidepressant medication (ADM) or cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), but who evidenced mood-linked increases in dysfunctional thinking, showed elevated rates of relapse over 18 months. The current study sought to evaluate whether treatment response…

Purpose: Aggression continues to challenge caregivers of persons with dementia, and identification of foci for effective interventions is needed. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of (a) the resident characteristics of depression, communication, and cognition and (b) behavior management strategies on aggression in a group of…