Growing evidence suggests that, as a group, many internationally adopted children catch up to their peers in terms of their language development by the time they reach their school-age years. Although this appears to be particularly true for children adopted during the first few years of life, it is not true for all internationally adopted…

This paper summarizes and illustrates an approach to assessment of communication development and treatment which focuses on the early relationships of preconversational children with their significant adults. The assessment approach is part of the Ecological Communication (ECO) model, which views caregivers of delayed children as critical to the…

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…

Many severely disabled individuals who rely on augmentative and alternative communication systems experience difficulties using newly acquired communication skills in settings different from those introduced in the instructional context and with different conversational partners. Methods of promoting functional communication skills are addressed,…

Focusing on the preconversational child who has yet to develop a stable or generalized habit of spontaneous conversation, this book presents ECO (Ecological Communication Model), a new intervention model for social and communicative development of developmentally delayed children. The model is based on two perspectives: the literature on the…

The Communicative Development of Toddlers with Cerebral Palsy (COCP) project developed an assessment-intervention program for non-speaking children with cerebral palsy. The goals of the project's Assessment-Intervention protocol are to teach the child to communicate in an appropriate, effective, and efficient way in different situations and with…

This second of three manuals providing a functional curriculum for students with disabilities focuses on the development of nonverbal and oral communication skills. An introductory chapter provides an overview of the curriculum and offers guidelines for developing instructional plans for the following two units of study. Unit 1 considers the…

The collection of papers on language development and African-American children includes: "The Challenges of Conducting Language Research with African American Children" (Holly K. Craig); "Issues in Recruiting African American Participants for Research" (Joyce L. Harris); "Issues in Assessing the Language Abilities of…