The sudden loss of intimacy can have a dramatic effect on satisfaction in a relationship. As many caregivers shift roles and try to personally adjust to their new reality, a steep drop in intimacy can often simultaneously occurs. Aphasia presents a significant barrier to opening discussions about intimacy and sexual contact. The purpose of this…

Native American tribes and families are highly pluralistic in their ideologies, beliefs, traditions, and values. Very little research has described the parenting and child-rearing beliefs of Native American caregivers. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of Native American caregivers' developmental priorities and preferences…

"Play" is a word used commonly to refer to children's preferred activities and to some adult activities, and it is often said that play promotes learning. But what is play exactly, and what and how do children learn through play? This essay begins with a description of an evolutionary, practice theory of play by German philosopher and…

To become successful readers, hearing children require competence in both decoding--the ability to read individual words, underpinned by phonological skills and letter-sound knowledge--and linguistic comprehension--the ability to understand what they read--underpinned by language skills, including vocabulary knowledge. Children who are born with a…

This article describes the operation of a Communication Coaching Program, which was designed to provide supports for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) attending the University of Rhode Island. To succeed in college programs, many students with ASDs need access to specialized programming and personnel who are able to foster their…

One of the primary purposes of expository text in education is to teach new content. Because elementary grade children are accustomed to applying their literacy skills to reading and writing narratives, they must be taught new skills if they are to access expository content effectively. These skills and practices can be challenging because…

This article focuses on why and how speech-language pathologists and other professionals can encourage the involvement of parents in teaching social communication skills to their young children. Four main topics are explored: (1) the evidence that many of the children with special needs served by speech-language pathologists and other…

Purpose: This article reviews the literature on students' developing skills in summarizing expository texts and describes strategies for evaluating students' expository summaries. Evaluation outcomes are presented for a professional development project aimed at helping teachers develop new techniques for teaching summarization. Methods: Strategies…

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 discusses the referential communication model, offers explanations for communication failure, presents evidence that even older elementary school children have difficulty in detecting ambiguity in messages, argues the need for a standardized test in this area, and surveys work with language-impaired groups and approaches to…

This paper discusses issues and research questions about facilitated communication that emerge from examining separately its components of physical touch and the written word. It describes the experiences of two adolescents (diagnosed as autistic and severely retarded) with facilitated communication, the role of touch as a teaching method, and the…

The validity of facilitated communication's effects are viewed from three perspectives, labeled as the plausible perspective, which is unexpected literacy; the skeptical perspective, which claims that social-communicative variables unintentionally influence intervention outcomes; and the enigmatic perspective, which neither rejects outright the…

A review of the literature regarding the training of parents as language facilitators for young language-handicapped children includes a description of the University of South Carolina Parent Training Program, which offers short-term training in desirable interactive styles, elicitation of appropriate language, and language facilitative…

This article proposes the application of a situated pragmatics (also known as community-based training or activity-based intervention) approach to intervention with children having severe communication disorders. Models for this approach have been developed by the World Health Organization and specialists in alternative and augmentative…

This paper views effective communication as an essential component of appropriate social behavior, provides definitions and conceptualizations of social skills and social competence within academic contexts, and describes social skills assessment and intervention procedures for school-age children and youth with and without disabilities.…