This study examined the effectiveness of the "Thrive by Three" intervention for 1- to 3-year-old's language development. Data from 78 childcare centres, 187 toddler classrooms, and 1561 children (91.4% native Norwegian) were included. Results revealed that children in the intervention group had slightly steeper language development than…

Background: The Language Development Survey (LDS) and the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI) are two parental report forms that have been productive in providing data on early child language during the past 30 years. The instruments have been used both in studies relating to typical developing children and in screening…

Children with language disorders have particular difficulty with verbs, but when this difficulty emerges is unknown. We examined syntactic (transitive, intransitive, ditransitive) and semantic (manner, result) features of two-year-olds' verb vocabularies, contrasting late talkers and typically developing children to look for early differences in…

Visual-spatial ability is important for mathematics learning but also for future STEM participation. Some studies report children with dyslexia have superior visual-spatial skills and other studies report a deficit. We sought to further explore the relationship between children formally identified as having dyslexia and visual-spatial ability.…

Despite increasing utilization of chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) for autism spectrum disorders (ASD), limited information exists about how results influence parents' beliefs about etiology and prognosis. We conducted in-depth interviews and surveys with 57 parents of children with ASD who received CMA results categorized as pathogenic,…

This dissertation was conducted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to investigate the needs and perceptions of parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) in regard to the support and services provided in Saudi Arabia. Fifty-eight parents of children who are DHH were surveyed. Participants were asked to complete the survey…

High-ability youth diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) historically have been neglected within samples validating ASD screening measures, and consensus for what constitutes high ability has not been established. The Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) and Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) are two common screening tools for ASD…

Purpose: To date, there is no tool for assessing early pragmatic development of Polish-speaking children. This study aimed to adapt to Polish a standardized parent report measure, the Language Use Inventory (LUI; O'Neill, 2009, in order to enable cross-cultural comparisons and to use the LUI-Polish to screen for pragmatic development in children…

Purpose: This follow-up study assessed (a) the influence of phonological working memory (pWM), home literacy environment, and a family history of linguistic impairments in late talkers (LTs); (b) the diagnostic accuracy of a task of nonword repetition (NWR) in identifying LTs; and (c) the persistence of lexical weaknesses after 10 months. Method:…

A sample of 1047 parents completed an online survey about their experiences and opinions regarding the process of attaining a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder for their children. The results revealed that parents usually waited a year from when they first had concerns about their child's development before they sought professional help. On…

Purpose: Our objective was to replicate previous cross­linguistic findings by comparing Portuguese and U.S. children with respect to (a) effects of language, gender, and age on vocabulary size; (b) lexical composition; and (c) late talking. Method: We used the Language Development Survey (LDS; Rescorla, 1989) with children (18-35 months) learning…

Although electronic technology currently plays an integral role for most youth, there are growing concerns of its excessive and compulsive use. This study documents patterns and impact of electronics use in individuals with autism spectrum disorder compared to typically developing peers. Participants included 172 parents of typically developing…

The current study examined the relationship between early language ability and autistic-like traits in adulthood, utilising data from 644 participants from a longitudinal study of the general population. Language performance at 2 years was measured with the Language Development Survey (LDS), and at 20 years the participants completed the…

Response to Intervention (RTI) has been used in the public school system to improve student achievement in areas of weakness and identify students who may need further resources. The local goal is to improve the retention rate and identify those students that may need additional support systems. The overall goal is to decrease the number of…

Children from low-income environments are at increased risk of developing language delays which can negatively affect later academic and social outcomes. As children age, deficits between children with language delays and their typically developing peers continue to widen. In order to prevent future disabilities, efficient early language screening…