The study assessed the turntaking skills and pragmatic language skills of 4 mildly to moderately developmentally delayed children (ages 2 and 3) and 14 nondelayed controls. Developmentally delayed children exhibited appropriate turntaking skills but a higher proportion of gestural in contrast to verbal responses to the pragmatic language tasks.…

The phonological competence of 4 children, ages 5-7 years old, with a diagnosis of developmental apraxia of speech (DAS), was contrasted to that of 4 normal children. The DAS children revealed a severe deficit in rhyming ability. Results suggest that DAS is a fundamental disorder of the segmental phonological level of language. (Author/DB)

This study, with 19 young children (36-76 months old) with developmental delays, in the first stage of language learning, found that the children used more frequent language and more diverse vocabulary in routine than in nonroutine situations. The protocol for parent identification of routines is appended. (DB)

This study investigated the language input of eight childcare providers to eight young children with developmental disabilities and language delay in day care contexts. Findings indicated that language input addressed to these children was directive and not finely tuned to their expressive language levels. Also, these children interacted…

Fifty-eight prelinguistic children with developmental disabilities and their mothers participated in an experimental test of whether intentional communication elicits maternal responses purported to facilitate language development. Results indicated that treatment effects on maternal responses varied by pre-treatment maternal education level and…

Four toddlers with mental retardation were studied in the context of a multiple baseline across subjects design. Results supported the use of a modified version of milieu teaching to increase intentional requesting by these children. Increased intentional requesting was generalized to interactions with mothers. (Author/DB)

Evaluation of the Kent Scoring Adaptation, which determines developmental ages in several domains based on an infant's performance on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, with 27 at-risk infants supported the concurrent validity of the cognitive, language, and, to a degree, social domains of the Kent procedure but not the fine and gross motor…

Examines questions related to whether children with severe learning disabilities go through the same developmental stages as children without such problems, or whether they develop along different lines. Explores the "delay" versus "deviance" issue in relation to linguistic development in children with Down's syndrome. Looks…

This sequential analysis tested the relative extent to which several adult utterance types elicited conversational replies from eight developmentally delayed children (mean age 53 months). Among findings were that child replies of any length were elicited by adult topic continuations more than by any other adult utterance type. (Author/DB)

This introduction to the special issue summarizes issues raised in the nine subsequent contributed papers, which discuss research findings on communication and language development in persons with mental retardation or developmental disabilities. The paper stresses the direct relevance of the research for prevention, assessment, intervention, and…

This study, which applied an instructional model based on Piaget's theory of cognitive development, pragmatics theory of language development, and Mahler's theory of development of interpersonal relationships, found that 49 preschool children with autism did not make less progress than a comparison group of 27 children with other…

The study evaluated prediction of language quality using 3 approaches (neurodevelopmental, cognitive, and combination) with 37 developmentally delayed children (ages 5-9). Results indicated that these children had language and speech delays that showed substantial relationships to their verbal cognitive abilities and fine motor skills, in addition…

Ten two-year-old children with periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), a brain injury associated with prematurity, were evaluated using language samples. The five children with delayed cognitive ability produced significantly fewer lexical tokens and spontaneous verbal utterances than did chronological age-matched nondelayed PVL children. (Author/DB)

Eight preschoolers with moderate developmental disabilities were paired with typically developing peers who had been taught simple strategies to facilitate communicative attempts. Consistent improvements in social interaction by trained peers and target children were demonstrated. These improvements generalized when trained peers were assigned to…