Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who are also minimally verbal may require specialized interventions to promote the development of vocalizations. Preliminary research supports an innovative procedure called response contingent stimulus-stimulus pairing (SSP) as a potentially effective procedure to promote vocalizations. The primary aim…

In this article, the breadth and depth of play as an integrating process for children with developmental challenges are explored. The fact that play is a source of developmental growth suggests that its role in intervention with children with language and communication disorders cannot be overstated. Several contemporary play-based intervention…

Background: The Preschool Speech and Language Program (PSLP) in Ontario, Canada, is a publicly funded intervention service for children from birth to 5 years with communication disorders. It has begun a population-level programme evaluation of children's communicative participation outcomes following therapy. Data are currently being collected for…

Children interact with people in context: including home, school, and in the community. Understanding children's relationships within context is important for supporting children's development. Using child-friendly methodologies, the purpose of this research was to understand the lives of children with speech sound disorder (SSD) in context.…

Approximately 20,000 children are adopted from foreign countries each year. Of these children, approximately 46% are adopted before they are 12 months old and 43% are adopted between 1 and 4 years of age. The development of children adopted from abroad before or by 2 years of age is the focus of this article. Given the impoverished language input…

Research on the language development of internationally adopted children has increased substantially in the past few years, with a variety of methods used to measure language abilities in this population, including parent and teacher reports, norm-referenced tests, conversational and narrative language samples, and other procedures. These…

A model of communicative development is described that includes seven progressively more complex levels of competence and a set of six criteria (communicative features) for individual assessment at particular developmental levels. Research evidence supporting the model is reviewed. Implications for assessment and intervention with communicatively…

In response to Senate Concurrent Resolution 83, the Texas Education Agency studied methods for screening all students upon entry to school for significant developmental lags that could lead to learning disabilities. The resulting report includes: (1) identification of screening techniques; (2) methods currently in use and validated for treatment…

The Children's Language Institute Preschool Project developed a successful classroom-home language intervention program for mildly to mildly-to-moderately language-impaired preschool children. An overview of the project, its rationale, and its results in terms of positive change in families and children are described. This volume is designed to…