Describes the evolution of a transdisciplinary team for assessing infants and toddlers identified as at-risk for developmental delay. The assessment process is outlined and includes information on instruments used in assessing the cognitive, language, and motor development of infants and toddlers. Obstacles encountered with families and methods…

The syntax of 14 child speakers of African American English (AAE) with and without language disorders were compared. Findings suggested that shared features between AAE and Standard American English may be more diagnostically salient than features not shared when identifying children of AAE language backgrounds with language disorders. (DB)

A case study of a Greek child (age 5) with visual impairment and echolalia is presented to illustrate the symptoms of echolalia in inclusive settings, the forms that echolalia can take, and how echolalia is differentiated from the kinds of speech repetitions observed in conditions of normal language acquisition. (Contains references.) (CR)

A study investigated the psychometric validity of current language impairment, communication activity limitation, and quality of life measures for differentiating 18 typical adults from 18 adults with chronic aphasia. Results indicated there existed significant relationships among some demographic variables and performance on the measures,…

A review of learning disabilities in gifted children provides definitions of "learning disabilities" and "giftedness", a classification of gifted students with learning disabilities, the importance of a multidimensional approach to identifying students with gifts/learning disabilities, characteristics, programming guidelines, teaching strategies,…

Investigates validity of the Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC) measuring characteristics of individuals with autism, and the Pervasive Developmental Disorder Rating Scale (PDDRS) measuring pervasive developmental disorders. Results showed both instruments significantly discriminated between participants with autistic disorder and children with…

This study examined test characteristics of the Pediatric Language Acquisition Screening Tool for Early Referral-Revised (PLASTER-R), a set of developmental questionnaires for children 3 to 60 months of age. The PLASTER-R was moderately to highly successful in identifying children within normal limits for language development. Test-retest…

Standardized, norm-referenced measures of achievement, phonological processing measures, and curriculum-based measures of reading fluency were used with 40 children (Grades 1-2), including 20 children with reading disabilities. All measures were found to correlate significantly with each other; however, correlations were generally in the moderate…

Analysis of Florida data (n=159,129) found that new born infants with any of four risk factors for low socioeconomic status (SES) were 1.2 to 3.4 times more likely than others to have a learning disability placement by age 12 to 14. Proportion of placements attributable to low SES was 30 percent among boys and 39 percent among girls. (Contains…

Fourteen general and special education teachers met 10 times to examine current assessment practices and to consider and design alternatives that they experimented with between meetings. Teachers produced high quality assessments to reflect their teaching-learning contexts, and gained confidence in their ability to make professional judgments…

This study surveyed the states concerning discrepancies between federal and state counts of the number of students identified as visually impaired. States overwhelmingly reported higher state counts than federal counts. Major reasons suggested for the discrepancy are federal count exclusion of students with additional disabilities and of students…

This study compared word definition skills of 8 Spanish-speaking children with and 9 without language impairments (LI) (all aged 9). Children without LI tended to use formal definitions, while children with LI exhibited fewer formal definitions and appeared to show a limited use of their syntactic knowledge in their word definitions. (CR)

Discussion of support services for college students with learning disabilities presents the nine-step process used at Ball State University (Indiana) to encourage students to identify themselves, meet eligibility guidelines, learn about services and accommodations provided by the university, talk to professors about needed accommodations, use…

Development of reading speed in Italian children with dyslexia was estimated using individualized growth curves for 38 children with dyslexia tested longitudinally from 2nd-8th grade and compared with controls. Their reading speed development followed a linear trend of .3 syllables per second per grade, half the increment observed in controls.…

This article provides information on the transcription of Spanish, common dialects of Spanish, Spanish-influenced English, and English-influenced Spanish. It emphasizes that by using appropriate transcription notation, speech-language pathologists will be aided in differentiating phonological variation from phonological disorder in individuals who…