This study examined associations between three parent-child engagement states and social communication, expressive language, and receptive language at 8 month follow-up, in 63 preschool-age children with autism spectrum disorder. We extend the literature on supported joint engagement by dividing this state into higher order (HSJE) and lower order…

Purpose: This preliminary investigation explored potential cognitive and linguistic sources of variance in 2- year-olds' speech-sound discrimination by using the toddler change/no-change procedure and examined whether modifications would result in a procedure that can be used consistently with younger 2-year-olds. Method: Twenty typically…

Background: This study had two aims: to investigate the capacity of individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) to make decisions about their medications, and to evaluate whether the provision of training (information) sessions on medications would increase their capacity. Method: Twenty-eight adults (18 male and 10 female), with a mild to…

Extensive evidence exists that many children who experience early socio-economic disadvantage have delayed language development. These delays have been shown to exist when children start school and appear to persist through their education. Interventions that can help these children are desirable to ease the difficulties they have in school and to…

Forty native Spanish-speaking children (age 8;0-10;3), 20 with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and 20 with Typical Language Development (TLD), received a battery of psycholinguistic tests, IQ, hearing screenings, and the Spanish Non-word Repetition Task (NRT). The children's repetition of 20 non-words was scored. The percentage of correct…

Thirty-three young people with cochlear implants, aged between 9 and 16 years, were assessed for use of their implant system, cognitive abilities, vocabulary, reading, and writing skills. The group came from throughout England and included 26 born deaf, six deafened by meningitis, one with auditory neuropathy, and five with additional needs.…

Clinical Questions: Would a child who is a late talker (P) show greater improvement with parent-implemented intervention models (I) or with clinician-directed intervention models (C) as shown by improvements in expressive language skills (O)? If so, under what circumstances? Method: Literature Review. Study Sources: Education Source, ERIC,…

This study examined the efficacy of using different types of mobile media apps to increase the receptive and expressive vocabulary development of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old preschool children living in economically disadvantaged communities. Children and teachers in four Head Start classrooms participated in the quasi-experimental study, which…

The disproportionate representation of English Language Learners (ELL) to special education is widely attributed to the difficulty in identifying a disability through a language in development. This language acquisition or language disorder question has manifested in paradoxical disproportionality patterns for the ELL population. Some…

The Massachusetts Preschool Expansion Grant (PEG) model supported and expanded high-quality preschool in high-needs communities. PEG required shared governance between local school districts and Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care-licensed community-based programs. The 48 PEG classrooms provided free prekindergarten for…

Little is known about the relationships between phonological processing, language, and reading in children with intellectual disability (ID). We examined the structure of phonological processing in 294 school-age children with mild ID and the relationships between its components and expressive and receptive language and reading skills using…

The study investigated the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and novel word reading. Fourth-grade students were assessed on standardized measures of word identification, decoding, and receptive vocabulary, as well as on an experimental word identification measure using words that students in the fourth grade are unlikely to have seen…

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) brain scans were obtained from 19 infants at 7 months. Expressive and receptive language performance was assessed at 12 months. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) identified brain regions where gray-matter and white-matter concentrations at 7 months correlated significantly with children's language scores at 12 months.…

Several studies provide considerable insight into the role that frequency plays in language development. However, no study has investigated the direct relationship between frequency and grammatical acquisition in children with specific language impairment (SLI). In this study, we focus specifically on the influence of the frequency of functional…

Parents often turn to educators and healthcare professionals for advice on how to best support their child's language development. These professionals frequently suggest implementing the "one-parent-one-language" approach to ensure consistent exposure to both languages. The goal of this study was to understand how language exposure influences the…