Increasing visitor use in U.S. national parks leads to myriad challenges, one of which is the large amount of waste generated. In this research, visitors to three parks were surveyed to identify potential leverage points for communicating with visitors that may help increase desirable behaviors in visitors as part of the Zero Landfill Initiative…

Although many global MBA programs teach intercultural communication, what happens when the method for teaching that concept becomes mostly experiential? To answer that question, the authors took two very similar classes, both composed of working adults, a Business Communications course in Germany and a Managerial Communications course in the…

This paper examines the understanding of the use of dramatic activities and conventions in the field of education and social action, differentiating between the constructs of theatre and drama in education. In order to help reflect on the practices of teachers and educators who use these didactic strategies in their profession, three diagrams are…

Purpose: This study reports a secondary analysis of the nature of communicative functions and modalities used in initiations and responses of minimally verbal preschoolers with severe autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from a previously published study (Thiemann-Bourque, Feldmiller, Hoffman, & Johner, 2018). This analysis focused on the final…

Much research exists supporting the efficacy of naturalistic behavioral interventions on increasing social communication skills for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, these evidence-based interventions are not consistently utilized in preschool classrooms. Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching was used to teach early intentional…

Effective organizational socialization demands soft skill competence. This article advances two goals: (a) explore the inclusion of undergraduate researchers in the scholarship of teaching and learning research and (b) present research findings on employer perceptions of new college graduates' communication skills. The research team used a rules…

The psychological literature on the development of gestures during the first year of life has been limited. It has mainly focused on the development of pointing at around 11 months of age, considering it "the" gesture that allows triadic interactions. However, recent studies have argued for the importance of earlier ostensive gestures…

Individuals with developmental disabilities often do not develop vocal repertoires, thus requiring the use of augmentative devices. Teaching caregivers to conduct communication training with their children may be one way to foster communication with their device in the natural environment. This study replicates Rosales, Stone and Rehfeldt (2009),…

Researchers report that caregiver-implemented communication interventions are effective and feasible. However, limited information is available on training and coaching programs for families who speak languages other than English in their homes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a parent training and coaching program originally designed to…

When educating young children with autism, it is imperative to use a teaching practice that is supported by evidence-based research. This review examined and synthesized the results of studies targeting the acquisition of verbal requests (mands) by young children with autism. Results indicated that verbal mand interventions are effective at…

In writing, speaking, and movement, without context society would be unable to communicate and function at the capacity it does today. Oftentimes, the context of a situation is understood with only a few words, a nod, or even by simply residing within a location. In most aspects of life, context is the undetected force, but in a communication…

Graduate courses are designed to help students learn discipline-specific knowledge, theories, and methods, but also to socialize them into the larger professional network. The awards assignment in this paper is designed to familiarize students with a wide variety of scholars and research within a field of study, to engage them creatively with…

When asked to explain their solutions to a problem, children often gesture and, at times, these gestures convey information that is different from the information conveyed in speech. Children who produce these gesture-speech "mismatches" on a particular task have been found to profit from instruction on that task. We have recently found…

The Motor and Vocal Imitation Assessment (MVIA) was developed to evaluate a proposed hierarchy of imitation skills that could be used to formulate an experimentally-validated instructional guide for intervention. Imitation performance was assessed via the MVIA in 30 typically developing (TD) children and 30 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition impacting individuals' social communication and interactions. Animal-assisted interventions (AAI) have been identified as practice modalities for children with ASD. A systematic review of the literature was completed identifying 13 articles addressing the impact AAI has on the social…