Challenging behaviors are common and persistent in persons with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Best practices dictate that symptoms of ASD and these co-occurring problems be identified and then treated at the earliest possible age. Having said this, there has been a dearth of available assessment methods to make sure identifications in infants…

The availability of educational programming aimed at infants and toddlers is increasing, yet the effect of video on language acquisition remains unclear. Three studies of 96 children aged 30-42 months investigated their ability to learn verbs from video. Study 1 asked whether children could learn verbs from video when supported by live social…

How infants learn new words is a fundamental puzzle in language acquisition. To guide their word learning, infants exploit systematic word-learning heuristics that allow them to link new words to likely referents. By 17 months, infants show a tendency to associate a novel noun with a novel object rather than a familiar one, a heuristic known as…

The efficacy of the paraprofessional-delivered Family Spirit home-visiting intervention for young American Indian mothers on maternal knowledge and infant behavior outcomes is supported. Participating mothers showed greater knowledge gains compared to non-participating mothers.

In this excerpt from the book "From Lullabies to Literature: Stories in the Lives of Infants and Toddlers," the authors offer dos and don'ts for sharing story experiences with very young children. They include tips such as keeping groups intimate, showing pleasure and enthusiasm, being expressive, and using props. The authors suggest story…

University training clinics offer state-of-the-art treatment opportunities for clients, particularly for underserved and underinsured client populations. Little has been published regarding the implementation of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in settings such as a university training clinic, which may face challenges in utilizing such a…

The aim of this longitudinal study was to obtain information on the early lexical development and its predictive value to language skills in very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children. The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory was used to collect data of the early receptive and expressive lexicon of the 32 VLBW children. This information was…

This longitudinal study on Finnish families was conducted to identify developmental differences in family-level communication among mothers, fathers, and their infants during the second half of the infant's first year, and associations with infants' later language and communicative skills. We examined coregulated communication of parent-infant…

This paper explores the language experiences of preverbal infants in Australian childcare centres with the aim of examining cultural regulation within the childcare context. Language is defined as a social and communicative act that is related to the development of voluntary action (Vygotsky 1962; Lock 1980; Leontiev 1994). The study uses…

Several instruments have been developed to screen for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in high-risk populations. However, few studies compare different instruments in one sample. Data were gathered from the "Early Screening of Autistic Traits Questionnaire," "Social Communication Questionnaire," "Communication and Symbolic…

This report examines whether the presence of children in marriage differentially influences the risk of wives or husbands initiating separation. The analytic sample consists of 9,118 first marriages from the Households, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey (2001). Using event history and competing risks analysis, I find weak evidence…

We evaluated over 200 participants semiannually from 12 to 48 months of age on measures of intellectual (Bayley Scales, Stanford-Binet Scale) and verbal (MacArthur-Bates Inventory, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test) status. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear (growth curve) analyses were applied to address the nature of development…

Childhood-onset schizophrenia is an exceedingly rare mental illness whose complex, multifaceted behavioral presentation can disrupt child development and raise diagnostic and treatment difficulties for attending clinicians. The disorder, affecting one in 30,000 children, shares the same diagnostic criteria and symptoms as its adult counterpart,…

Measurement in early childhood is an increasingly large-scale endeavor addressing purposes of accountability, program improvement, child outcomes, and intervention decision making for individual children. The Early Communication Indicator (ECI) is a measure relevant to intervention decision making for infants and toddlers, including response to…

This longitudinal assessment concentrated on the relation between the home literacy environment (HLE) and early language acquisition during infancy and toddlerhood. In study 1, after controlling for socio-economic status, a broadly defined HLE predicted language comprehension in 50 infants. In study 2, 27 children returned for further analyses.…