On average, groups of autistic individuals are more likely than groups of non-autistic individuals to exhibit unconventional conversational behaviours. We examined autistic and non-autistic children's social impressions of unconventional responding, as well as actual conversational behaviours in the same participants. Across two studies, 36…

A crucial human cognitive goal is to understand and to be understood. But understanding often takes active management. Two studies investigated early developmental processes of understanding management by focusing on young children's comprehension monitoring. We ask: When and how do young children actively monitor their comprehension of…

Drawing on Conversation Analysis, this paper investigates how an English native speaker interviewer utilizes clarification requests as a form of recipient design during an interview to resolve problems of non-understanding. This data is contrasted with interviews between English language learners at a private university in Taiwan. The findings…

Purpose: Working with students with emotional behavioral disorders is a challenging area of speech-language pathology practice. In this study, we compare and profile the narrative discourse, structural language, and social communication characteristics of adolescents attending behavioral support and mainstream schools. We also examine…

The purpose of this single case A-B-A-B study was to determine if the dependent variables of eye gaze, vocalization, and reaching would increase among students and peers with severe and multiple disabilities and complex communication needs when the independent variable of positioning for communication and socialization (peers facing each other and…

Purpose: Individuals with mild aphasia often report significant disruption to their communication despite seemingly minor impairment. This study explored this phenomenon through examining conversations of a person with mild aphasia engaging in argumentation--a skill she felt had significantly deteriorated after her stroke. Method: A person with…

Conversational repair often occurs in conversations when people attempt to address communicative breakdowns or inaccuracy by way of repeating what have been said or putting them in another way. The review of literature on conversational repair revealed that as an important concept in pragmatic aspect of language, it is an effective strategy to…

Background: A subset of children with Developmental Language Delay (DLD) encountered difficulties with the regulation of spoken discourse. In the conversations of caretakers with DLD children, several studies report difficulties with turn-taking, a proneness to use the non-verbal register, child and caretaker problems with topic management.…

Purpose: This study aimed to describe the types and frequency of conversational repairs used by African American (AA) children in relationship to their geographic locations and levels of performance on commonly used speech-language measures. Method: The strategies used to initiate repairs and respond to repair requests were identified in…

Autism is a disorder characterized by a core impairment in social behaviour. A prominent component of this social deficit is poor orienting to speech. It is unclear whether this deficit involves an impairment in allocating attention to speech sounds, or a sensory impairment in processing phonetic information. In this study, event-related…

Explores ethical and legal problems related to the treatment of communication apprehension and avoidance (CAA). Discusses three options for solving those problems: "cease and desist" all treatment programs; create hybrid communication/counseling programs; or create a code of ethics for CAA treatment procedures. (KEH)

Finds that persons (college students) thwarted in their attempts to provide geographic directions to others reiterated directions with little change in structure but with significant increases in vocal intensity and decreases in speech rate. Confirms the hierarchy hypothesis that individuals modify their message plans to make alterations first…

On the basis of theoretical reflection and personal experience, this paper offers five guidelines for fostering dialogical learning experiences in consulting in the field of communication. After a discussion of the author's dialogical learning experiences in overcoming communication problems with his father, the paper provides these guidelines:…

A study investigated the effectiveness of requests for clarification by 25 adults with hearing impairments and of partner responses in overcoming communication breakdowns. Nonspecific clarification requests, requests for the repetition of a specific constituent, and request for confirmation by participants with hearing losses were effective in…

A study examined skills related to an individual's satisfaction with a partner's listening ability. Forty-nine undergraduates in a listening skills class were asked to increase the use of effective listening behaviors with three to five individuals with whom they had a relationship--this resulted in 194 participants in the study. Two…