This study explored whether American and Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers differ in their evaluations of student oral performance by examining the assessments of two groups of raters in an undergraduate speech competition. Each of the 21 contestants presented a 3-min prepared speech on a required topic, responded to a follow-up…

L2 requests in developmental pragmatics research are commonly investigated using non-interactive data collection techniques or sidelining the larger discourse sequence in which the request proper is embedded. This study takes a different approach to the study of L2 requests. In a cross-sectional design, we collected role play data from learners at…

We evaluated a program for teaching two adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to perform more advanced operations on an iPod-based speech-generating device (SGD). The effects of the teaching program were evaluated in a multiprobe multiple baseline across participants design that included two intervention phases. The first intervention…

Young boys with autism were compared to typically developing boys on responses to nonsocial and child-directed speech (CDS) stimuli. Behavioral (looking) and physiological (heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia) measures were collected. Boys with autism looked equally as much as chronological age-matched peers at nonsocial stimuli, but less…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an intensive voice treatment (Lee Silverman Voice Treatment, commonly known as LSVT LOUD) for children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) and dysarthria. Method: A nonconcurrent multiple baseline single-subject design with replication across 5 children with spastic CP was used.…

Rett syndrome (RTT) is a developmental disorder characterized by regression of purposeful hand skills and spoken language, although some affected children retain some ability to speech. We assessed the communicative abilities of five young girls, who were later diagnosed with the preserved speech variant of RTT, during the pre-regression period…

Over the past years functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has substantially contributed to the understanding of language and its neural correlates. In contrast to other imaging techniques, fNIRS is well suited to study language function in healthy and psychiatric populations due to its cheap and easy application in a quiet and natural…

This single case study describes the speech, phonological awareness and literacy of a 6;0-year-old girl with a cochlear implant. NG, a child with a congenital bilateral severe/profound hearing loss, received a monaural cochlear implant at the age of 3;0, three years prior to the study. Using a psycholinguistic framework to investigate her single…

To investigate possible influences on and consequences of mothers' speech, specific infant behaviors preceding and following four pragmatic categories of mothers' utterances--responsive utterances, supportive behavioral directives, intrusive behavioral directives, and intrusive attentional directives--were examined longitudinally during dyadic…

Evidence for the role of corrective input as a facilitator of language acquisition is inconclusive. Studies show links between corrective input and grammatical use of some, but not other, language structures. The present study examined relationships between corrective parental input and children's errors in the acquisition of the Spanish copula…

We assessed the language, cognitive, and socioemotional abilities of 27 internationally adopted children from China, adopted by French-speaking parents, 12 of whom had been assessed previously by Gauthier and Genesee. The children were on average 7 years, 10 months old and were matched to nonadopted monolingual French-speaking children on age,…

The purpose of this qualitative, multi-case study was to explore the oral language of Spanish-speaking preschool students and their responses to questions, comments and requests made by an English-speaking teacher. Research questions focused on students' responses to questions; comments and requests by the teacher; and whether the response was…

This interpretive case study investigated how a fifth-grade teacher's social practices with visual and linguistic signs positioned her students (10- and 11-year-olds) to take up particular modes as they constructed digital compositions. The context of the study was a suburban public school in the northeastern United States. Analysis was threefold.…

We seek to understand how teachers that do not share a heritage language with their students can leverage these languages in literacy instruction. This study reports on 5 teachers' implementation of a literacy activity that uses strategic collaborative translation to facilitate middle school English language learners' (ELLs) understandings about…

Can young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities be known for their strengths? This mixed-method study explored the strengths of 427 youth and young adults with intellectual disability and/or autism (ages 13-21) from the vantage point of their parents. Using the Assessment Scale for Positive Character Traits-Developmental…