The effectiveness of two extra-stimulus prompting procedures was compared in teaching receptive labels to a 3 year old autistic boy. One prompting procedure was used exclusively by the treatment center the child attended and was similar to extra-stimulus prompts used in previous studies. The procedure involved alternating unprompted trials of a…

Comparison of the fast mapping skills of language-impaired four- and five-year-olds (N=11) and nondisabled peers (N=11) revealed no differences in ability to infer a connection between a novel word and referent, to comprehend a novel word after a single exposure, and to recall nonlinguistic information associated with the referent. (Author/CB)

Language disabled (LD) and average (N=40) six- and eight-year-olds were evaluated on the ability to detect multiple word meanings in ambiguous sentences with and without picture clues and to identify appropriate word meaning by sentence context. LD students did not show average growth in these abilities over the two-year age span. (Author/DB)

The relationship between perspective taking ability and quality of social behavior was investigated with 16 autistic children ranging in age from 6 to 14 years. Results indicated perspective taking ability correlated significantly with two measures of social skills whereas receptive vocabulary and nonverbal intelligence did not. (Author/DB)

Assessment of category knowledge and receptive language skills of 16 autistic (3-6 years old), mentally retarded, and normal children indicated that the autistic children's knowledge of function, form, and color categories was comparable to that of the mental-age-matched mentally retarded and normal comparison groups. (Author/DB)

The ability of 22 phonologically disordered and normally speaking children's ability to process (phonologically, syntactically, and semantically) spoken language was evaluated. No differences between groups was found in number of errors, pattern of errors, or reaction times when monitoring sentences for target words, irrespective of sentence type.…

Aphasic adults (N=16) with severe auditory comprehension impairment were evaluated for comprehension of redundant and nonredundant spoken and/or gestured messages. Results indicated redundancy was not reliably superior to spoken messages alone. (Author/DB)

This article argues in favor of a receptive vocabulary component in foreign language courses through consideration of: productive vs. receptive vocabulary knowledge; misconceptions in receptive vocabulary instruction; and classroom-tested approaches and activities for receptive vocabulary development. (CB)

The concurrent and predictive relations of sensorimotor behavior and play to language in the second year were assessed among 19 preterm and 20 full-term infants tested at 13 1/2 and 22 months of age. Numerous associations between play and language were identified; sensorimotor behavior and language in the same age period were relatively loosely…

Eighteen language disabled kindergarteners participated in a five-month intervention program emphasizing the development of expressive grammar. Ss made significant gains in expressive syntax, receptive morphology, expressive language, and one aspect of receptive language. Control Ss only made significant gains in one aspect of receptive language.…

Significant correlations between two speech-sound discrimination (SSD) tests and ITPA expressive language skills subtests and insignificant correlations between SSD tests and subtests measuring receptive and associative language skills indicated that ability to discriminate speech sounds is more related to speaking than to understanding or…