The DEC Recommended Practices provide guidance to families and professionals about the most effective ways to improve learning outcomes and promote development of young children, birth through age 5, who have, or are at-risk for, developmental delays or disabilities. "Assessment: Recommended Practices for Young Children and Families" is…

"Psychoeducational Assessment of Preschool Children," Fifth Edition, provides academics and school-based practitioners such as psychologists, speech-language pathologists, and social workers with an up-to-date guide to the assessment of young children. Long recognized as the standard text and reference in its field, this comprehensive,…

This volume offers a comprehensive, up-to-date, empirical and methodological view over the new scenarios and environments for language teaching and learning recently emerged (e.g. blended learning, e-learning, ubiquitous learning, social learning, autonomous learning or lifelong learning), and also over some of the new approaches to language…

The paper discusses specific concerns and issues related to the assessment of profoundly deaf clients. Data on 11 profoundly deaf clients are used to illustrate the problems involved in assessment, and practical strategies for assessment are presented. One case study is detailed. The importance of assessing functional communication skills is…

The study found that five multiply handicapped two-year-olds engaged in a greater frequency of communicative behaviors, a higher number of limb movements, and a higher developmental level of communicative behaviors when the interaction was child-initiated compared to when it was adult-initiated. (Author/JDD)

Speaking across the curriculum programs are a readily accessible venue for the assessment of oral communication competence and in some instances are already being used for such purposes. While so far the implementation of simple holistic judgments for quality assurance purposes has emerged as one practical procedure, further exploration should…

Discusses ethical principles necessary when evaluating students' communication skills. Stresses the importance of examining the ethics of this process because the evaluation of communication behavior is performed by individuals who are prone to subjectivity. (PD)

Argues that show-and-tell is an important school learning activity that gives students an opportunity to practice and improve their oral language abilities. Offers a technique for the informal assessment of show-and-tell activities. (FL)

This article develops the concept of communicative participation as a means of analyzing the outcomes of language intervention with young children, including those with disabilities, in everyday contexts such as preschool. The construct's five interrelated layers are identified: (1) life-world participation, (2) participant structure, (3)…

The paper describes the "Early Social Communication Scales" designed to assess social and communication skills typically acquired in the first 30 months of life. Stressed is the role of the tester as an interactive partner for the infant. Reliability data suggesting reliability over time with the same partner are presented. (Author/DB)

Discusses the nature and sources of test bias in measuring communication skills. Recommends structured performance assessment to reduce bias, contending that performance tests, if carefully administered, can be valid, unbiased methods of assessing communication skills. (PD)

An assessment procedure is described which employed television in the clinical evaluation of an unintelligible preschool child referred for speech-language evaluation. The preschooler's familiarity with and interest in television enabled the clinician to elicit an extended sample of clinical communication and linguistic skills from an otherwise…

The training manual was developed as a result of a summer training institute held in 1986 for teachers of low-incidence populations (those made up of students with severe and multiply handicapping conditions). The institute aimed to provide teachers with the latest information and technology to assess and develop early communication skills, and…

The article proposes a six-stage model of the development of communication forms and functions during the prelinguistic period. Applications to the clinical treatment of severely developmentally disabled persons concern expanded targets and procedures for assessment and treatments which are socially interactive and responsive. (DB)

Guidelines are offered to a college or university for conducting a communication audit. These include steps in planning the audit, use of the variety of tools available for administering the audit, the development and feedback to the institution, and development of recommendations to improve institutional communication. (JMF)