Although shy children speak less in social situations, the extent to which their language skills fall behind those of their more outgoing peers remains unclear. We selected 22 temperamentally shy and 22 non-shy children from a larger group of 400 4-year-old children who were prescreened for temperamental shyness by maternal report, using the…

An approach based on Skinner's (1957) theory of verbal behavior has been developed to understand and teach elementary communication skills to children with autism and developmental disabilities (Sundberg & Partington, 1998). However, few studies have directly examined the characteristics of emerging language in children with developmental…

By looking at data on expressive phonology, non-word repetition, non-word discrimination and phonological sensitivity in two groups of Swedish children, the common basis for tasks tapping into different levels of phonological processing is discussed. Two studies were performed, one including children with language impairment (LI) and one including…

The primary objective was to compare the grammatical output of children with language disorders on different tasks. Sixty-five children with language disorders, aged six to eleven, completed the syntactic formulation (elicitation) and narrative subtests from the Assessment of Comprehension and Expression 6-11 (Adams et al. 2001). Grammatical…

Purpose: To examine the validity of the Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT; K. Williams, 1997) for assessing the expressive vocabulary skills of African American students. Method/Results: One hundred sixty-five African American preschool and kindergarten students were administered the EVT. The mean EVT score for these African American students was…

This meta-analysis examined whether writing about stressful experiences affects health care utilization (HCU) compared with writing on neutral topics or no-writing control groups. Randomized controlled trials of 30 independent samples representing 2,294 participants were located that contained sufficient information to calculate effect sizes.…

In this article I share stories I have lived alongside my son, Matthew, who is challenged by multiple disabilities, particularly in the domain of expressive speech. Narrative inquiry shaped a space to attend and inquire into stories. The stories reveal the tension between an identity "given" and an identity continually "created" in relationship.…

This study examined the growth of expressive language skills in children who received cochlear implants (CIs) in infancy. Repeated language measures were gathered from 29 children who received CIs between 10 and 40 months of age. Both cross-sectional and growth curve analyses were used to assess the relationship between expressive language…

The complex nature of written expression presents difficulty for many students, particularly those with learning disabilities (LD). The literature in the area of written expression and students with learning disabilities indicates that explicit, rule-based instruction can enhance the writing skills of struggling students. Research in Direct…

This paper reports an assessment of the collocational competence of students of English Linguistics at the University of Granada. This was carried out to meet a two-fold purpose. On the one hand, we aimed to establish a solid corpus-driven approach based upon a systematic and reliable framework for the evaluation of collocational competence in…

Purpose: Language and speech are difficult to assess in newly arrived internationally adopted children. The purpose of this study was to determine if assessments completed when toddlers were first adopted could predict language outcomes at age 2. Local norms were used to develop early intervention guidelines that were evaluated against age 2…

The aim of this article is to show that a better awareness of the relationship between written and spoken communication can help the writer to improve his/her effectiveness. The focus will be on written texts that precede (formal and informal) discussions. The analysis will start with a description of the differences between orality and literacy.…

The assessment of selective mutism usually takes place in a clinic, where the child often refuses to speak to the therapist. The challenge when trying to understand the child's own perspective is to find a medium for communication. Three selectively mute children were interviewed using Raven's Controlled Projection for Children (RCPC). The…

Background: When assessing people with intellectual disabilities (ID), using the DSM-IV-TR can be challenging. Frequently, significant clinical data must be obtained from interviews with key informants. A new semi-structured interview tool was developed including behavioural descriptions of each DSM-IV-TR symptom criterion for a number of mood and…

The frequency, course, and inter-relationships of atypical eating, sleeping, self-injurious behavior, aggression and temper tantrums in children with autism and children with a history of language impairment (HLI), was investigated using a parent interview that was created to examine these problem behaviors. The relationships between these…