The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is an augmentative and alternative communication program (Frost & Bondy, 2002). Although PECS has been effectively used to teach functional requesting skills for children with autism, mental retardation, visual impairment, and physical disabilities (e.g., Anderson, Moore, & Bourne, 2007; Chambers &…

Approximately 20,000 children are adopted from foreign countries each year. Of these children, approximately 46% are adopted before they are 12 months old and 43% are adopted between 1 and 4 years of age. The development of children adopted from abroad before or by 2 years of age is the focus of this article. Given the impoverished language input…

Research on the language development of internationally adopted children has increased substantially in the past few years, with a variety of methods used to measure language abilities in this population, including parent and teacher reports, norm-referenced tests, conversational and narrative language samples, and other procedures. These…

The reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act and the No Child Left Behind Act requires that students with extensive support needs have access to, participate in, and make progress on the general curriculum along with their grade-level general education peers. This article suggests that the terms used in this…

Aside from Lotter's groundbreaking studies in six African countries, few studies about autism in Africa have been published. The samples in the published studies do not appear to be representative of children in the respective countries. Hence, it is difficult to determine the prevalence rate of the disorder in the countries. However, the studies…

This article honours Adele Miccio's life work by reflecting on the utility of phonetic transcription. The first section reviews the literature on cases where children whose speech appears to neutralize a contrast in the adult language are found on closer examination to produce a contrast ("covert contrast"). This study presents evidence…

While a number of authors have suggested that patients with palilalia typically show a tendency to repeat words or phrases with an increasing rate, others maintain that an accelerating speech rate is not essential. The present paper reports the results of an instrumental analysis of the reiterations in a 60-year-old man with palilalia. Results…

Purpose: To describe the current treatment research for communication (prosodic, discourse, and pragmatic) deficits associated with right hemisphere brain damage and to provide suggestions for treatment selection given the paucity of evidence specifically for this population. Method: The discussion covers (a) clinical decision processes and…

Auditory processing disorder (APD) describes a mixed and poorly understood listening problem characterised by poor speech perception, especially in challenging environments. APD may include an inherited component, and this may be major, but studies reviewed here of children with long-term otitis media with effusion (OME) provide strong evidence…

Background: In young, typically developing children, some word production variability is expected, but highly inconsistent speech is considered a clinical marker for disorder. Speech-language pathologists need to identify variability versus inconsistency, yet these terms are not clearly differentiated. Not only is it important to identify…

Williams syndrome is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder caused by deletion of approximately 25 genes on chromosome 7q11.23. Children with the syndrome evidence large individual differences in both broad language and reading abilities. Nevertheless, as a group, children with this syndrome show a consistent pattern characterized by relative…

Background: Children with complex communication needs (CCN) often experience problems achieving literacy. The aim of this project was to study phonological awareness, a central predictor for literacy achievement, in children with CCN, and to compare their performance to a group of children with natural speech. Method: One group of 15 Swedish…

Purpose: The current study presents preliminary nonword repetition data from Spanish-speaking preschool children using a new set of stimuli. Method: Twenty nonwords were constructed to be phonotactically possible in Spanish and to conform to published guidelines for nonword repetition stimuli. Fourteen Spanish-speaking typically developing…

With detailed discussion and invaluable video footage of 23 treatment interventions for speech sound disorders (SSDs) in children, this textbook and DVD set should be part of every speech-language pathologist's professional preparation. Focusing on children with functional or motor-based speech disorders from early childhood through the early…

The purpose of the current study is to document phonological change from a multidimensional perspective for a 3-year-old boy with phonological disorder by comparing three measures: (1) accuracy of consonant productions, (2) dynamic assessment, and (3) acoustic analysis. The methods included collecting a sample of the targets /s, [image omitted],…