Background: Developmental language disorder (DLD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental conditions. Due to variable rates of language growth in children under 5 years, the early identification of children with DLD is challenging. Early indicators are often outlined by speech pathology regulatory bodies and other developmental services as…

Purpose: This study sought to (a) characterize the demographic, audiological, and intervention variability in a population of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) children receiving state services for hearing loss; (b) identify predictors of vocabulary delays; and (c) evaluate factors influencing the success and timing of early identification and…

Purpose: One promising early marker for autism and other communicative and language disorders is early infant speech production. Here we used daylong recordings of high- and low-risk infant-mother dyads to examine whether acoustic-prosodic alignment as well as two automated measures of infant vocalization are related to developmental risk status…

Each year, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) releases a list of scientific advances that represent significant progress in the field. The "2017 Summary of Advances" provides short, plain language summaries of the top research breakthroughs selected by the IACC from a pool of research articles nominated by the members.…

The number of young children with autism is ever-increasing, and school psychologists are more frequently required to identify these students. Valid screening tools are needed in order to focus school psychologists' time on those students in need of intensive evaluations in Early Intervention programs. The purpose of this study was to examine the…

Background: There is growing application of school-based screening to identify post-traumatic distress in students following exposure to trauma. The consensus method is based on self-report questionnaires that assess posttraumatic symptoms, functional impairment, depression or anxiety. Objective: The current research explored the possibility of…

Background: Males with fragile X syndrome and autism (FXS/autism) represent a distinct subgroup of males with FXS at risk for markedly poorer outcomes. Early identification and intervention can improve outcomes for males with autism spectrum disorder. Method: To advance the development of a specialised autism screening tool for young males with…

In clinical practice, it is important to predict as soon as possible after diagnosis and starting treatment, which children are destined to develop medically intractable seizures and be at risk of increased mortality. In this study, we determined factors predictive of long-term seizure and mortality outcome in a population-based cohort of 102…

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and epilepsy are common pediatric disorders that often occur co-morbidly. Both disorders predispose children to a wide range of school-related problems, some of which are the same and others vastly different. Fortunately, with early diagnosis and comprehensive disease management, the long-term…

Background: Identifying many of the diagnostic criteria for anxiety and depression in individuals with intellectual disability (ID) can be challenging because they may be unable to recognize and communicate their emotional experiences accurately. The purpose of this study is to identify behavioural equivalents of anxiety in children with fragile X…

This article addresses the continuity from early speech-language delays to later learning problems in school and recommends use of "language organization disorder" to describe the delay. Chronologies of the difficulties and methods for early detection are provided. A table summarizes 11 research studies on early language delays and later reading…

Maladaptive behavior of 43 children (ages 4-19) with Prader-Willi syndrome was compared to children with Down syndrome and nonspecific mental retardation. The children with Prader-Willi showed more frequent and severe internalizing, externalizing, and total problem behaviors. Certain maladaptive behaviors were distinctive to these children and…

Adolescents (n=26) whose depressive symptoms increased from ages 11 through 13 were compared with matched control participants (n=26) whose depressive symptoms remained low over the same period. Symptoms could be predicted at age 11 from self-perceptions, self-evaluation, loneliness/social dissatisfaction, perceived number of friends, and…

A study examined literature on mathematics learning disabilities (LD) and identified specific behaviors of students with mathematics LD. Data are presented from observations of 391 special educators on 1,724 students with LD, 870 with math weaknesses. Difficulty with multi-step problems was the single most important behavior for predicting math…

Data from 143 children with reading disabilities (RD), 100 with arithmetic disabilities (AD), and 121 controls (ages 6-16) found the RD and AD groups had significantly lower scores on all verbal IQ subtests. Many also showed significant differences between verbal and performance IQ scores, but so did many controls. (Contains references.)…