Comprehension is an important factor in the functioning of irony. Readers who are unaware of the irony in an utterance are "sheep," whereas readers who understand the irony are "wolves" (Gibbs & Izett, 2005). Factors that may impact on the attitude toward irony not only include comprehension, but agreement (agreeing with…

Alteration of the organization of social and motivational neuroanatomical circuitry must have been an essential step in the evolution of human language. Development of vocal communication across species, particularly birdsong, and new research on the neural organization and evolution of social and motivational circuitry, together suggest that…

It's easy to imagine that a deep silence hangs over people with autism, but nothing could be further from the truth, at least in the author's case. His son Cameron has always been a noisy, histrionic person. He speaks most volubly with his body, and over the years the author and his wife Leslie have learned to interpret his gleeful…

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder often have restricted verbal communication. For children who do not use functional speech, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices can be an important support. We evaluated the effectiveness of one AAC programme, the Language Acquisition through Motor Planning (LAMP) using a Vantage…

Forty science students received training for 12 weeks on delivering effective presentations and using a tertiary-level English oral presentation scale comprising three subscales (Verbal Communication, Nonverbal Communication, and Content and Organization) measured by 18 items. For their final project, each student was given 10 to 12 min to present…

Ethnic or racial discrimination towards children and adolescents at schools is of concern in many contexts around the world because it is associated with diverse psychosocial, behavioural, emotional, and identity problems. The purpose of this study was to identify the types of ethnic discrimination experienced by indigenous Mapuche adolescents in…

The use of systems of rewards and sanctions within behaviour policies has now been adopted formally in UK schools. Such systems potentially represent competing theoretical ideas when considered alongside current approaches to teaching and learning. There is also opportunity for inconsistent use of rewards and sanctions resulting from the absence…

Human raters are normally involved in L2 performance assessment; as a result, rater behavior has been widely investigated to reduce rater effects on test scores and to provide validity arguments. Yet raters' cognition and use of rubrics in their actual rating have rarely been explored qualitatively in L2 speaking assessments. In this study three…

Research Findings: The roles of child lexical diversity and maternal sensitivity in the development of young children's inhibitory control were examined in 100 low-income Hispanic Spanish-speaking children. Child communication utterances at age 2½ years were transcribed from 10-min mother-child interactions to quantify lexical diversity. Maternal…

We investigate the development of expert identities through the use of the sociocultural perspective of learning as participating in a community of practice. An ethnographic case study of biophysics graduate students focuses on the experiences the students have in their research group meetings. The analysis illustrates how the communities of…

This issue explores the nature of childhood by offering selections that re/imagine the idea of the child as art maker; inquire about the relationships between children and adults when they are making art; and investigate how physical space influences approaches to art instruction. Readers are invited to join a dialogue that questions long-standing…

We evaluated a behavioral skills training program for adults with autism spectrum disorder and mild or no intellectual disabilities who were interested in learning the skills used by behavior therapists to work with young children with autism and other developmental disabilities. Four adults, aged 21 to 30 years, participated. We trained each…

Purpose: In this study, the authors aimed to evaluate hypotheses that early sociocognition will predict later social communication and early phonology will predict later morphosyntax in clinically referred preschoolers. Method: Participants were 108 children ages 9-11 years who had been referred to clinical services with concerns about language at…

Partial dictation is a measure of EFL listening proficiency that can be easily constructed, administered, and scored by EFL teachers. However, it is controversial whether this form of test measures lower-order abilities exclusively or involves both lower- and higher-order abilities. In order to answer this question, a study was designed to examine…

Williams (WS) and Down (DS) syndromes are characterised by roughly opposing ability profiles. Relative verbal strengths and visuospatial difficulties have been reported in those with WS, while expressive language difficulties have been observed in individuals with DS. Few investigations into the executive function (EF) skills of these groups have…