Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine if 2.5-year-olds with language delay would learn verbs ("spill") when presented with varying syntactic structure ("The woman is spilling the milk"/"The milk is spilling"; "milk" = patient or theme) in a therapeutic context. Children with language delay have…

Discrete trial teaching (DTT) is a common teaching methodology used within intervention for autistics/individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Practice recommendations related to using DTT for receptive language instruction includes the desired size of the array of stimuli to be presented. Some recommendations include ensuring…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify variability in word-learning mechanisms used by late-talking children using a longitudinal study design, which may explain variability in late-talking children's outcomes. Method: A cohort of typically developing children (n = 40) and children who were classified as late-talking children at age 2;0…

Prior eye-tracking studies involving autistic individuals have focused on total looking time or proportion of looking time to key regions of interest. These studies have not examined another important feature, the ability to sustain attention to stimuli. In particular, the ability to sustain attention to a dynamic social stimulus might reflect…

Purpose: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and complex communication needs are increasingly taught to use tablet-based speech-generating devices (SGDs). An important issue in designing such interventions is the selection of an appropriate format for displaying vocabulary. The purpose of this study was to determine (a) whether young…

Research on visual local and global perception in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is incomplete in young children. We investigated 35 three-year-old siblings of children with ASD, either diagnosed (n = 12) or not diagnosed (n = 23) with ASD as well as 14 controls with typical development and with no family history of ASD. Data from the local tasks…

A single-subject, alternating treatment study compared the impact of two types of photograph displays of contrasting contextual complexity. The study examined the impact of high-context and no-context photographs, displayed on an iPad, on the ability of three preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to transition to play activities.…

Purpose: Vocal, gestural, and graphic communication modes were implemented concurrently with a toddler with Angelman syndrome to identify the most efficiently learned communication mode to emphasize in an initial augmentative communication system. Method: Symbols representing preferred objects were introduced in vocal, gestural, and graphic…

This research addresses the challenges of assessing receptive language abilities in minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder by comparing several adapted measurement tools: a standardized direct assessment of receptive vocabulary (i.e. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-4); caregiver report measures including scores on the Vineland-II…

To address the specific impairment of imitation in autism, the imitation abilities of 22 children with fragile X syndrome (FXS) with and without autism were compared. Based on previous research, we predicted that children with FXS and autism would have significantly more difficulty with non-meaningful imitation tasks. After controlling for…