An important part of "doing" science is engaging in collaborative science practices. To better understand how to support these practices, we need to consider how students collaboratively construct and represent shared understanding in complex, problem-oriented, and authentic learning environments. This research presents a case study…

This dissertation investigates the effect of linguistic and nonlinguistic variables on the use of spatial representations in bilingual speakers of Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM) and Mandarin Chinese (MC) as compared to monolinguals. Linguists and psychologists are particularly interested in the factors that influence the selection among such…

Explanations are typically accompanied by hand gestures. While research has shown that gestures can help learners understand a particular concept, different learning effects in different types of gesture have been less understood. To address the issues above, the current study focused on whether different types of gestures lead to different levels…

Purpose: To study the independence of gesture and verbal language production. The authors assessed whether gesture can be semantically compensatory in cases of verbal language impairment and whether speakers with aphasia and control participants use similar depiction techniques in gesture. Method: The informativeness of gesture was assessed in 3…

Background: Studies to date in semantic dementia have examined communication in clinical or experimental settings. There is a paucity of research describing the everyday interactional skills and difficulties seen in this condition. Aims: To examine the everyday conversation, at home, of an individual with semantic dementia. Methods &…

Purpose: The authors aimed to compare gesture use in infants with autism with gesture use in infants with other developmental disabilities (DD) or typical development (TD). Method: Children with autism (n = 43), DD (n = 30), and TD (n = 36) were recruited at ages 2 to 7 years. Parents provided home videotapes of children in infancy. Staff compiled…

The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of Melodic Based Communication Therapy (MBCT) to traditional speech and language therapy for eliciting speech in nonverbal children with autism. Participants were 12 nonverbal children with autism ages 5 through 7 randomly assigned to either treatment group. Both groups made significant…

This article addresses the effect of communicative activity on the use of language and gesture by school-age children. The present study examined oral narratives and explanations produced by children aged six and ten years on the basis of several linguistic and gestural measures. Results showed that age affects both gestural and linguistic…

Early in development, many word-learning phenomena generalize to symbolic gestures. The current study explored whether children avoid lexical overlap in the gestural modality, as they do in the verbal modality, within the context of ambiguous reference. Eighteen-month-olds' interpretations of words and symbolic gestures in a symbol-disambiguation…

Face processing has been studied and discussed in depth during previous decades in several branches of science, and evidence from research supports the view that this process is a highly specialized brain function. Several authors argue that difficulties in the use and comprehension of the information conveyed by human faces could represent a core…

Although emotional functioning is impaired in children with autism, it is unclear if this impairment is due to difficulties with facial expression, autonomic responsiveness, or the verbal description of emotional states. To shed light on this issue, we examined responses to pleasant and unpleasant odors in eight children (8-14 years) with…

Deaf children whose hearing losses prevent them from accessing spoken language and whose hearing parents have not exposed them to sign language develop gesture systems, called "homesigns", which have many of the properties of natural language--the so-called resilient properties of language. We explored the resilience of structure built…

The ability to verbalize--and therefore think and learn abstractly--has conditioned people to see the world in logical patterns. People are trained to do so by the wiring of the neurologically typical (neurotypical) brain and the increasing complexity of the environment that shapes it. Public schools are also designed for students with…

This paper evaluates the development of new cultural theories utilizing video-based analysis. For this purpose, a multi-methods research design, combining videographies, group discussions and surveys, was applied. A video sequence showing a clip of a 10th grade class at Ramja Public School in Pusa Road in Delhi provides the basis for a discussion…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder do not just 'grow out of' their early difficulties in understanding the social world. Even for those who are cognitively able, autism-related difficulties continue into adulthood. Atypicalities attending to and interpreting communicative signals from others can provide barriers to success in education,…