This article presents a matrix model to train individuals with severe handicaps to use language skills in spontaneous language situations. The model takes into account listener preparatory behaviors and contextual variables. The model suggests procedures for efficient training for generalization. (DB)

This study examined effects of Enhanced Milieu Teaching on the social communications skills of four preschool children with autism when delivered by trained interventionists. Observational data indicated that all children showed positive increases for specific target language use at the end of 24 intervention sessions, and these results were…

This study compared the relative effectiveness of imitative intervention and conversational recast language intervention applied to grammatical morpheme and complex sentences in 21 children with specific language impairment. The conversational procedure was found to require fewer presentations to first spontaneous use and to produce more…

This study investigated effects of the application of Enhanced Milieu Teaching (EMT) with four preschool children with developmental disabilities during interactions with three primary conversational partners. The study involved a multiple baseline (probe) across two children which was replicated across two additional children. Within that…

Two three-year olds, one verbal and one nonverbal, with moderate to severe developmental delays were taught target communication objectives using milieu language teaching. The children generalized their target objectives spontaneously and in probe situations that also required them to display listener preparatory behaviors. (Author/DB)

Strategies and considerations for establishing initial communication repertoires in young children with severe disabilities are described using a case example of a four-year-old nonverbal child. Issues include: assessing unconventional forms of communication, motivating the child when being taught new communication forms, and promoting…

Incorporated motivational procedures to teach question-asking to three children (ages three and five). All children learned to use questions in relation to items they had previously been unable to label and demonstrated generalization of spontaneous question-asking to new items and to their home environments with their mothers, with concomitant…

This study investigated "redirects," a procedure in which a teacher redirects a child's communication from the teacher to a peer, as a means to facilitate initiations to peers. Use with four preschool boys with specific language impairment found that most of the redirected initiations received conversational responses from peers. Generalization to…