The present study examined the social significance of changes resulting from teaching symbolic play skills to children with autism using Pivotal Response Training (PRT). Qualitatively obtained results from a previous study indicated that, following symbolic play training, children with autism increased their symbolic play behaviors and play…

Depression-vulnerable college students (with both elevated prior depressive symptoms and low current depressive symptoms) wrote on 3 consecutive days in either an expressive writing or a control condition. As predicted, participants scoring above the median on the suppression scale of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003)…

Children with Down syndrome often display speech-comprehensibility and grammatical deficits beyond what would be predicted based upon general mental age. Historically, speech-comprehensibility has often been treated using traditional articulation therapy and oral-motor training so there may be little or no coordination of grammatical and…

More than ten years have passed since the widely publicized debate about personal and academic writing that played out in the 1990s between Peter Elbow and David Bartholomae. But the question of the relative merits of these two different types of writing for student writers continues to be an issue of concern for teachers of composition,…

Linguistic and cognitive profiles were examined in 18 children with autism and 18 children with fragile X syndrome (mean ages = 34 months). State-of-the-art diagnostic procedures for autism symptom identification were administered. Eight children with fragile X met criteria for autism. Comparison of linguistic and cognitive profiles (autism,…

The effects of 2 preschool-based shared-reading interventions were evaluated with 95 children, ages 2- to 5-years, from low-income families. Language skills of the children were below age-level as measured by standardized tests. Children were pretested and randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: (a) no-treatment control, (b) typical shared-reading…

Background: Disordered expressive prosody is a widely reported characteristic of individuals with autism. Despite this, it has received little attention in the literature and the few studies that have addressed it have not described its relationship to other aspects of communication. Aims: To determine the nature and relationship of expressive and…

Cross-cultural differences in emotional expressions following disappointment were examined in 59 Chinese American (CA) and 58 European American (EA) children. Children aged four or seven participated in a disappointing gift situation. Dimensions of expressive behaviors following disappointment were coded and included positive, negative, social…

With the implementation of the inclusion concept in public school classes, the ability of the general physical educator to effectively teach all of his or her students has been tested. This is particularly true with some students who have a receptive language disability (e.g., deaf, traumatic brain injury), an expressive language disability (e.g.,…

In 118 children followed from age 2 to 5 (59 with autism, 24 with PDD-NOS and 35 with non-spectrum developmental disabilities), age 2 and age 3 scores of non-verbal ability, receptive communication, expressive communication and socialization were compared as predictors of receptive and expressive language at age 5. Non-verbal cognitive ability at…

Communication in written and oral discourse can be enhanced by cohesive devices, linguistic structures independent of grammar. One cohesive device is that of enumeration or listing. In French, the means of expressing enumeration include such structures as: "avant...puis.../d'une part...d'autre part.../enfin.../ensuite..." and in idiolectal use,…

The parent's guide reviews normal speech and language development and discusses ways in which parents of young children with language problems facilitate that development. Terms such as speech, communication, and receptive and expressive language are defined, and stages in receptive/expressive language development are charted. Implications for…

A 20-minute videotape sample was obtained of the language interactions between 20 Down syndrome children (ages 38 to 107 months) and their mothers during informal playtime. Linguistic utterances of mothers and children were coded according to the following language categories: query, declarative, imperative, performative, feedback, imitation,…

Maternal language directed to 21 nonhandicapped, 21 Down syndrome, and 19 language impaired preschool children was examined. The three groups (all Caucasian and middle-class) were matched in mean length of utterance (MLU) and in developmental skills as measured on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale. Mother-child language interaction was…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether at-risk kindergartners and first graders engaged in a regular curriculum supplemented by the WORDPLAY program would attain greater receptive and expressive language skills than similar students engaged in the regular curriculum only. WORDPLAY is a program specifically designed to provide extensive…