A question and answer format presents information for parents on electronic communication aids for children with severe speech impairments. (DB)

Facilitated communication (FC) was evaluated using a message-passing paradigm with eight primarily nonverbal adults with mental retardation. These individuals were required to relay to their facilitators via FC items that had been presented to them individually. Six individuals failed to correctly pass any messages (items) to the facilitators…

This article describes communicative norms associated with two clinical discourse styles (adult centered and child centered) and explores the ethnographic concepts of thick description and indefinite triangulation in utterance interpretations. Clinicians are urged to evaluate client utterances from multiple communicative perspectives. (DB)

This assessment of the validity of facilitated communication used a conversational methodology with five adults with intellectual disability. There was no evidence of a valid communication by any of the 5 adults in the 18 trials involving concrete objects nor in the 17 trials involving conversational topics. (JDD)

An interdisciplinary research group in Denmark examined use of facilitated communication, via spelling boards, by 17 patients with communication disorders. Meaningful communication took place only when the facilitators had access to the information to be communicated. (JDD)

Two rule-based (truncation and contraction) abbreviation expansion encoding methods and 1 non-rule-based (random) method were evaluated for learning curve and retrieval speed with 66 adults. The truncation method resulted in faster retrieval than the other two methods. Results have implications for training users of augmentative communication…

Describes the treatment of three children experiencing selective mutism. The procedure utilized incorporated self-modeling, mystery motivators, self-reinforcement, stimulus fading, spacing, and antidepressant medication. All three children evidenced a complete cessation of selective mutism and maintained their treatment gains at follow-up.…

A sociolinguistic, semantic analysis of intonation was conducted on a 15-minute natural interaction between an aphasic speaker, his wife, and his neighbor. Findings indicated the neighbor made more use of two dimensions of intonation, specifically pitch movements referring to shared information and marked tones, when addressing the aphasic speaker…

Ethical considerations in relationships with people who have severe speech and communication problems must be based on acceptance that the individual has something of value to communicate even if the means for expressive communication are limited. There is an ethical imperative on the more competent communication partner to help the disabled…

Addresses the role of speech language pathologists in schools, the settings in which they work, and the ways in which they can work together with teachers to serve children's needs. (SK)

Background: Semantic and inferencing abilities have not been fully examined in children with communication difficulties. Aims: To investigate the inferential and semantic abilities of children with communication difficulties using newly designed tasks. Methods & Procedures: Children with different types of communication disorder were compared with…

In this article, the reason why certain terms, labels, and ideas prevail, whereas others fail to gain acceptance, will be considered. Borrowing the concept of "meme" from the study of evolution of ideas, it will be clear why "language-based" and "phonological" disorders have less widespread appeal than, for example, "auditory processing" and…

Background: The pragmatic skills of children with communication disorders and their assessment are currently an issue for speech and language therapy and educational placement. Aims: To explore whether different subgroups of children with communication disorders score differently on the Children's Communication Checklist (CCC) and to study how…

The purpose of the study was to examine what parents find as acceptable treatment options for children with behavior problems in a communication disorders population. Parents' acceptability of seven treatment options, including positive reinforcement, time-out, response cost, spanking, overcorrection, differential attention, and medication were…

Prospective follow-up study of 70 males with Asperger syndrome (AS), and 70 males with autism more than 5 years after original diagnosis. Instruments used at follow-up included overall clinical assessment, the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders, Wechsler Intelligence Scales, Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, and Global…