Introduction: This paper aims to identify to what extent staff training interventions are successful in enhancing the development of communication skills in people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. Methods: A systematic review was undertaken, conforming to PRISMA guidelines. English language, peer reviewed, empirical studies of…

The purpose of this systematic literature review was to summarize single-case intervention studies involving paraprofessional-implemented systematic instruction for students with disabilities. In the 19 reviewed studies, 60 paraprofessionals received training to implement systematic instruction with most learning naturalistic language strategies,…

Background: Intensive Interaction is an approach used for communicating with people with profound and multiple intellectual disabilities [PMID] or autism. It has gained increased recognition as a helpful technique, but the evidence has not been systematically reviewed. Method: Computerized and hand searches of the literature were conducted using…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires 95% participation in state achievement testing. Students with the most significant cognitive disabilities participate in states' alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS). A growing number of these students are also English learners (Christensen et al., 2018).…

This study observed ten students with profound and multiple disabilities, with particular attention paid to social and communicative variables operating in educational settings. Comparisons are made with other published studies of behavior state assessment and socio-communicative processes observed in special education programs. (Contains…

The paper reviews research on the development of communication in visually and mentally handicapped persons. Communication difficulties are traced from the preverbal stage, through imitation and turn-taking, visual co-orientation and objects, and the effects of visual loss on early development. The added impact on a mentally handicapped person of…

A review of 10 studies that utilize the behavior chain interruption strategy (BCIS) to teach communication skills to individuals with severe disabilities found that BCIS has been successfully applied to individuals across a wide range of ages and levels of disability, including learners with multiple disabilities. Generalization concerns are…

The paper reviews the nonverbal behaviors of students with severe/multiple handicaps and demonstrates parallels between their communication development and that of normally developing children. Discussed are the roles of the adult and child in the communicative exchange and examples of communicative behavior typically seen in children with…

A review of research on the adaptive behavior of persons with both mental retardation and autism/pervasive developmental disorder finds the performances of these dually disabled individuals to be particularly poor in the domain of social skills/socialization and somewhat less poor in the communication domain. In addition, autistic mentally…

The literature on symbolic forms of communication was reviewed, and an experimental program was designed to teach a single set of vocabulary to a group of four institutionalized profoundly retarded blind/mute adults through the use of gestures. Literature about deaf/blind persons suggested the use of coactive movement techniques and facilitation…

The purpose of this manual, the culmination of a graduate project begun at the University of Kansas, is to assist individuals with severe, multiple disabilities and their service providers in learning to utilize nonsymbolic behaviors in an expanded, facilitative manner that leads to more consistent and predictable communication functioning. The…

This paper addresses issues in the definition of traditionally underserved persons who are deaf. It notes that these people have traditionally been labeled as low functioning, low achieving, multiply handicapped, minimal language skilled, and disadvantaged. A new definition, developed by the Northern Illinois University Research and Training…

This review summarizes and discusses literature relevant to the communication development of young children (0-5 years) with deaf-blindness. The review is divided into topical areas. The topical areas and the contributors for each area are as follows: "Perspectives on Communication Assessment" (Charity Rowland); "Research in Tactile…