This preliminary study examined the effects of 10 weekly lessons of therapeutic horseback riding (THR) on 42 participants diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ages 6-16 years) compared to a subset (n=16) of the total study population who were first evaluated before and after a 10-week waitlist control condition. All participants received…

Children who enter kindergarten with low oral language skills are at great risk for reading problems, especially in the areas of vocabulary and comprehension. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two instructional vocabulary methods of storybook reading with children who exhibit typically developing language skills and…

Purpose: The authors hypothesized that significant positive relationships would exist between early gesture use and later language attainments in children with fragile X syndrome (FXS), as has been reported in studies with other populations. Method: Participants were young children with FXS and limited expressive language (21 boys, 4 girls),…

This study characterized early language abilities in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (n = 257) using multiple measures of language development, compared to toddlers with non-spectrum developmental delay (DD, n = 69). Findings indicated moderate to high degrees of agreement among three assessment measures (one parent report and two direct…

We use a time-course analysis to examine the roles of vocabulary size and executive control in bilinguals' verbal fluency performance. Two groups of bilinguals and a group of monolingual adults were tested in English with verbal fluency subtests from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System. The two bilingual groups were equivalent in their…

Purpose: In this article, the authors sought to determine whether the precise age of implantation (AOI) remains an important predictor of spoken language outcomes in later childhood for those who received a cochlear implant (CI) between 12 and 38 months of age. Relative advantages of receiving a bilateral CI after age 4.5 years, better…

This issue's "Middle Level Learning" section presents two articles. The first is "Harriet Tubman: Emancipate Yourself!" (by Steven S. Lapham and Peter Hanes). "Argo," which won the 2012 Oscar for best picture, was about a daring escape of six U.S. diplomats from Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. Now imagine the…

Research Findings: Multitiered instructional frameworks are becoming a recommended approach for enhancing prevention and intervention efforts targeting early literacy and language skills. However, few studies to date have studied the feasibility of tiered oral language interventions before kindergarten; therefore, this pilot study explored the…

This paper reports a longitudinal investigation into the productive vocabulary development in the written Chinese of the Cantonese-speaking elementary children in Hong Kong. Data gathering took place using two vocabulary tests which selected prescriptive vocabulary from the textbooks and the 2007 Vocabulary List. The two assessment tests also…

Language and literacy skills established during early childhood are critical for later school success. Parental engagement with children has been linked to a number of adaptive characteristics in preschoolers including language and literacy development, and family-school collaboration is an important contributor to school readiness. This study…

Purpose: The impact of a newly designed computer-assisted treatment ("C-AT") program, "My Sentence Builder", for the remediation of expressive-grammar deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI) was explored. This program was specifically designed with features to directly address expressive-grammar difficulties, thought to be…

Purpose: The purpose of this meta-analysis was to systematically evaluate the effects of parent-implemented language interventions on the language skills of children between 18 and 60 months of age with primary and secondary language impairments. Method: A systematic literature search yielded 18 studies that met the predetermined inclusion and…

Many children born with severe and multiple disabilities have complex communication needs and may use no speech or only minimal speech to communicate. Meaningful assessment of their expressive skills to identify communication strengths along a developmental trajectory is an essential first step toward appropriate intervention. This article…

Problem Statement: Previous studies showed that children with special health care needs are at increased risk for future linguistic problems and deficits in narrative abilities. Despite this evidence of increased risk, there has been limited research on the impact of young children's health problems on specific aspects of linguistic development.…

The authors examined receptive and expressive language profiles for a group of verbal male children and adolescents who had fragile X syndrome along with varying degrees of autism symptoms. A categorical approach for assigning autism diagnostic classification, based on the combined use of the Autism Diagnostic Interview--Revised and the Autism…