Not all children begin primary school equally prepared to learn to read. Compared to children from higher-income homes, children from lower-income homes often display fewer emergent literacy skills. Children with disabilities also face substantial challenges in developing emergent literacy skills and learning to read. The evidence-based practice…

Children with developmental disabilities are at risk for limited participation in everyday activities. This study investigated factors that hindered or facilitated participation in 58 children with moderate-to-severe developmental disabilities who attended special schools. The parents completed surveys on their children's participation,…

Background: Due to long waiting lists for services, many adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the United States have unmet service needs. Little research, however, has identified the characteristics of caregivers and individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities that relate to the unmet service needs among…

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental conditions that vary in both etiology and phenotypic expression. Expressions of ASD characterized by a more severe phenotype, including autism with intellectual disability (ASD + ID), autism with a history of developmental regression (ASD + R), and minimally verbal…

Introduction: Stigma is widely identified as an issue affecting the health and well-being of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), and those with mental illnesses. To address this issue, a population mental health strategy, which includes a focus on reducing stigma and discrimination, was developed by the government of…

Rett syndrome (RTT) requires total caregiver attention and leads to potential difficulties throughout life. The Caregiver Burden Inventory, designed for Alzheimer disease, was modified to a RTT Caregiver Inventory Assessment (RTT CIA). Reliability and face, construct, and concurrent validity were assessed in caregivers of individuals with RTT. Chi…

Background: Environments are important to children's participation, but little is known about which environmental factors restrict their participation, particularly in children with moderate to severe developmental disability. Method: Parents of 64 children attending special schools completed the Environmental Restriction Questionnaire (ERQ). Two…

Background: Sensory irregularities are commonly seen across developmental and intellectual disability groups. Identifying patterns of dysfunction within these clinical groups facilitates the development of appropriate intervention strategies. Thus, we evaluated the psychometric properties of the new Sensory Processing (SP) Scale Inventory rating…

Purpose. This quantitative study examined parent perceptions regarding augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions for their children with autism to determine if, according to parent perceptions, a relationship existed between AAC and functional communication. Those faced with cognitive and developmental delays like autism face…

Although access to general curriculum content is most likely to occur in general education contexts, teachers and educational personnel are often challenged to implement the practice. In this instrumental case study, we examined the ways that a team of educational personnel in a district, which was identified as an exemplar of inclusive education,…

Background: Monitoring population trends including mortality within subgroups such as people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and between countries provides crucial information about the population's health and insights into underlying health concerns and the need for and effectiveness of public health efforts. Methods: Data from…

Parent engagement in behavioral interventions is critical for treatments to succeed. Parental decision-making regarding treatments can be impacted by systematic biases, such as the tendency to discount the value of delayed benefits, or "delay discounting". This study examined the impact of delay discounting on parents' perceptions of…

Dysphagia in people with lifelong disabilities places a substantial burden on people with lifelong developmental disabilities, their carers, health and disability service, and society as a whole. Dysphagia in this population can be associated with respiratory illness, impaired nutrition, increased support needs, emergency hospital admissions with…

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) often experience significant anxiety. A promising approach to anxiety intervention has emerged from cognitive studies of attention bias to threat. To investigate the utility of this intervention in WS, this study examined attention bias to happy and angry faces in individuals with WS (N = 46). Results showed…

We examined comorbid psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders in fifty adult males (mean age 30 years) with Asperger syndrome (AS) diagnosed in childhood and followed up prospectively for almost two decades (13-26 years). Only three of the 50 men had "never" met criteria for an additional psychiatric/neurodevelopmental diagnosis and…