This article describes ways for early educators to support communication of young children with complex communication needs (CCN) in classrooms through a simple three-step process. First, identify the child's preferred activities and items. Second, identify vocabulary and prepare the augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system. Third,…

Storybook reading interactions are an important strategy to support and enhance the development of communication and literacy skills. In order to reap the benefits of these interactions, students must be active participants. Unfortunately, for students with special needs, more specifically those with complex communication needs, they encounter…

Specific program suggestions are provided to enable the speech-language pathologist to utilize the mealtime setting to integrate both vocal and nonvocal communicative objectives. The roots of interaction and communication which underly both vocal and nonvocal systems are described. (Author)

The case study involves a developmentally apraxic eight-year-old girl using a multimodal communication system. The Partners in Augmentative Communication Training program was implemented. Results after two months suggested some improvement in communication interaction skills. Issues regarding developmental apraxia and the use of augmentative and…

Teachers can deal with language disordered children through discourse analysis, a conversational teaching process aimed at getting children to talk. Steps include selecting a topic to talk about during the remedial language session, having teacher and child take turns talking about the topic, using requests to constrain the child's responses so…

A classroom-oriented therapeutic program was devised for four pragmatically impaired preschoolers who showed little spontaneous language use within the classroom. Intervention strategies focused on facilitating interactions during free play and were based on four principles for practitioners: be child-oriented; engineer the environment; use…

"Partners in Augmentative Communication Training" (PACT) is a communication interaction facilitation program for child augmentative technique users and their communication partners. The program offers guidelines for use in developing individualized plans for improving conversational interaction. This resource guide addresses priority…

This article describes a discourse-based language intervention strategy in which children with pervasive developmental disorders are taught to make use of prior linguistic context to participate verbally in structured, interactive dialogues. The paper also describes the use of behavioral methodologies, especially milieu therapies, and the need for…

Describes a typical Group Decision Support System (GDSS) in use at the University of Mississippi and potential uses of a GDSS in seminars, interactive testing, lectures, foreign language study, and in communication with deaf or mute students. Benefits are noted, including increased participation, group synergy, and automated record keeping. (27…