Results indicated that the diagnostic questioning strategy using Full Model to Open Questioning was more efficacious for modifying the structure and content of young learners' expressive language repertoires than the reverse, which begins with an open ended question, "tell me about this," and proceeds through more restricted alternatives.…

Examination of 11 standard vocabulary lists used as sources of vocabulary items for developers of augmentative and alternative communication systems found little overlap between them, small vocabularies, and a tendency toward simple words. Many words in lists of adult nonspeaking users were not on any of the lists. (Author/DB)

Comparison of word fluency with seven high-functioning children with autism (ages 11-15) and controls of similar age and vocabulary level found that both groups performed equally well when generating words in response to familiar category cues, but autistic children performed significantly less well than controls when generating miscellaneous…

A theory of neurolinguistic function is proposed to explain fluency and the production of stuttered speech disruptions. Stuttering results when the speaker is under time pressure and is unaware of the cause of dyssynchrony between the linguistic and paralinguistic components of speech which are processed by different neural systems but converge on…

Twenty-four relatively high-functioning children and adolescents with autism were compared to typically developing children (matched for nonverbal mental age and language level) on three tasks designed to assess the presence of cognitive social scripts. Results indicated that basic scriptal knowledge was intact, but that reliable differences in…

Investigates gender and modality differences in experiencing and emotional expression. All 47 participants watched and responded to questions about an emotionally provocative video. Analyses revealed a higher level of experiencing, and more use of emotional words by women than men. Additionally, experiencing judgments of private responses were…

This study examined the relationship between event representation and linguistic expression in narratives of 31 children and adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) and controls matched for either mental age, syntax comprehension, or expressive language. Use of linguistic devices and cohesion were poorer in DS subjects than MA- matched controls with…

This study investigated whether shared parent-infant book reading at 4 and 8 months would be associated with subsequent language abilities at 12 and 16 months. Parents of 87 typically developing middle-class infants reported on the presence or absence of shared reading in the home; infant language abilities were measured through laboratory…

The age of detection of autism varies and may be linked to differences in the severity of disturbance and any associated retardation. Symptom intensity, overall language level, age of recognition of first disturbances and level of psychological development were examined in 222 children with pervasive developmental disorder with a mean age of 5…

Shift of the cortical mechanisms of language from the usually dominant left to the non-dominant right hemisphere has been demonstrated in the presence of large brain lesions. Here, we report a similar phenomenon in a patient with a cavernoma over the anterolateral superior temporal gyrus associated with epilepsy. Language mapping was performed by…

This study examined the moderating effect of low birth weight on the effectiveness of an early intervention program to improve cognitive, language and behavioral outcomes for children prenatally exposed to cocaine. Participants included 293 primarily minority, low SES children who were enrolled in the intervention during their first year and…

This preliminary study investigated the potential of using a dynamic approach to assessing expressive word mapping. Because measuring word mapping with productive language responses is much more difficult than measuring receptive word mapping, incorporating a dynamic measure allowed us to tap partial mapping and provided useful information on word…

How do teachers in diverse classrooms enact a transactional mode of literary response in their orchestration of classroom conversations about literature? This paper proposes that a theory of expressive language is central to answering this question and that the discourse genre of oral narratives may hold critical importance in accomplishing this…

Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the variability and predictors of expressive vocabulary development in children with autism and very delayed language. Method: This study involved 35 children with autism whose initial chronological ages were between 20 and 71 months and whose initial expressive vocabularies were less…

The present study, by use of questionnaire and vocabulary tests, has investigated the foreign language vocabulary learning situation of 481 undergraduates in terms of their perspective of vocabulary learning, strategy use and vocabulary size. Based on the questionnaire investigation and vocabulary level tests, the characteristics of the subjects'…