This review examined the status of long-term memory systems in specific language impairment (SLI)--declarative memory and aspects of procedural memory in particular. Studies included in the review were identified following a systematic search of the literature and findings combined using meta-analysis. This review showed that individuals with SLI…

Communication is a basic human necessity which in all its various forms has one common goal: expressing and deciphering ideas. Historically, verbal language has been the primary tool in this field. Education in recent years has taken a move towards more global approaches to learning/teaching. Within this context, more innovative and inclusive…

With increased interest in the early diagnosis and treatment of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), more attention has been called to the motor skills of very young children with ASD. This study describes the gross and fine motor skills of a cross-sectional group of 162 children with ASD between the ages of 12 and 36 months, as well as…

Adults' and 8-year-old children's perception of emotional faces is disrupted when faces are presented in the context of incongruent body postures (e.g., when a sad face is displayed on a fearful body) if the two emotions are highly similar (e.g., sad/fear) but not if they are highly dissimilar (e.g., sad/happy). The current research investigated…

Generic noun phrases, or generics, refer to abstract kind categories ("Dogs" bark) rather than particular individuals ("Those dogs" bark). How do children distinguish these distinct kinds of reference? We examined the role of one socio-pragmatic cue, namely pointing, in producing and comprehending generic versus particular…

This author discovered that his most powerful tool in the classroom was not to lecture, but to stop speaking at all. The effect of the resulting silence was even more positive than he could have imagined.

This qualitative, longitudinal, single-case study analyzes naturalistic interactions in Swedish Sign Language. Multiple interactions took place mainly between a mother and a deaf twin on twelve occasions. The participants' actions and language structure are examined as the child progressed from ten to forty months of age. The results are presented…

Mentoring is a trusting, developmental supervisory relationship whose success largely depends on participants' interpersonal abilities. Feedback interventions with mentees commonly present interactional challenges to maintaining that relationship, yet are integral to any teaching-learning context. In this study we examined whether and how two key,…

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of teaching naming emotional facial expression via video modeling to children with autism. Teaching the naming of emotions (happy, sad, scared, disgusted, surprised, feeling physical pain, and bored) was made by creating situations that lead to the emergence of facial expressions to children…

This paper addresses the use of videography combined with group interviews, as a way to better understand the informal learnings of 11-12 year old children in cross-cultural encounters during French-German school exchanges. The complete, consistent video data required the researchers to choose the most significant sequences to highlight the…

A severely impaired capacity for social interaction is one of the characteristics of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Deficits in facial emotional recognition processing may be associated with this limitation. The Build-a-Face (BAF) art therapy intervention was developed to assist with emotional recognition through the viewing and…

This article situates one possible future for rhetorical genre studies (RGS) in the translingual, multimodal composing practices of linguistically diverse composition students. Using focus group data collected with L1 (English as a first language) and L2 (English as a second language) students at two large public state universities, the researcher…

Children with autism spectrum disorders display atypical development of gesture production, and gesture impairment is one of the determining factors of autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. Despite the obvious importance of this issue for children with autism spectrum disorder, the literature on gestures in autism is scarce and contradictory. The…

Technological development offers language teachers a myriad of options for collaborative activities. Learners, in turn, benefit from increased opportunities to interact with people who can speak their target language. Research has previously highlighted the importance of developing learners' intercultural competence through such activities. The…

Of its millions of readers worldwide, why individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in particular love manga--and its animated cousin, anime--remains mostly unexplored. Therefore, it is critical for English teachers to ask two questions: (1) What does the preference for manga reveal about the way adolescents with ASD view and process the…