Autistic children experience challenges with narrative language and theory of mind (ToM). This pilot study examined the effects of a parent-led narrative intervention on the ToM of eight school-aged autistic children. Parents read three storybooks over a six-week period emphasizing ToM constructs (i.e., visual perspective-taking, emotion…

English learners (ELs) struggle with vocabulary learning and often evidence serious vocabulary gaps. It is challenging, especially for professionals who do not speak the native language of the students, to teach EL students vocabulary that supports academic learning, is compatible with classroom instruction, and considers their changing language…

This national implementation study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Tier 2 structured literacy teaching set within a multi-tiered system of support. Case-controlled matching was used to determine the impact of the implementation for 1,265 5-year-old children. One comparison group included 1,265 children who were matched to the experimental…

The purposes of this study were to (a) describe the extent to which motivational practices are incorporated in foundational reading interventions for students with or at risk for dyslexia in kindergarten through Grade 5 (K-5) and (b) explore whether the presence and type of motivational practices (i.e., supports vs. strategies) within foundational…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a virtual intensive reading intervention embedded with mindset training compared with typical reading instruction in a business-as-usual (BAU) condition delivered to fourth-grade students with or at risk for reading disabilities. After screening, the 59 participants were stratified and…

With the recent renewed emphasis on the importance of providing instruction to improve expository discourse comprehension and production skills, speech-language pathologists need to be prepared to implement effective intervention to meet this critical need in older children and adolescents with language disorders. The purpose of this review…

This article provides a review of problems associated with teachers' talk and indicators of higher quality teachers' talk for use with lower socioeconomic status (SES) Head Start students. Then it shows how one Head Start teacher, called Michele in this article, responded to professional development that was aimed at increasing the quality of…

This longitudinal study investigated the predictors of word reading in English and French for 69 children in early total French immersion from first through third grade. The influence of phonological awareness, orthographic processing, and vocabulary in English and French on the achievement and growth of word reading in the 2 languages were…

The state of reading proficiency in the United States has been under attack for decades. Attempts to improve reading achievement through instructional practices have taken the profession through the "reading wars" to "balanced-reading" to "evidenced-based" methods. Unfortunately, the professional development of…

This article reviews the evidence pertaining to intensity for phonemic awareness intervention for preschoolers and kindergartners with language impairment. The nature of phonemic awareness instruction is considered, including which phonemic awareness skills should be explicitly taught, how to structure these skills into teaching episodes, and how…

Williams syndrome is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder caused by deletion of approximately 25 genes on chromosome 7q11.23. Children with the syndrome evidence large individual differences in both broad language and reading abilities. Nevertheless, as a group, children with this syndrome show a consistent pattern characterized by relative…

Use of reading and writing to enhance oral communication skills requires analysis of the individual's performance; understanding of the interaction among auditory, oral, and written language disorders; integration of speech-language and educational services; and attention to skills of phonemic discrimination, auditory verbal comprehension, word…

This article provides suggestions for strategies that can be used to promote literacy learning across five stages of word reading development. Examples of the experiences of people with autism who have become successful readers are included to illustrate the importance of promoting literacy development for all learners. (Contains references.)…

The inaugural issue of "Topics in Language Disorders" included articles by Roth and Perfetti and Pearson and Spiro that reflected the thinking of the time on reading comprehension instruction. In this article, the author reviews the general direction of those contributions in light of current thinking and offers a model for organizing the…

This article presents an interview with Dr. Sylvia O. Richardson, a pediatrician, speech-language pathologist, researcher, scholar, teacher, and clinician, who has been involved in the field of language-learning disabilities for many years. Widely-published in the areas of language disorders and dyslexia, and a former President of the American…