An intraverbal assessment was administered to older adults with aphasia, using a hierarchy of questions that required increasingly complex verbal discriminative stimulus control. Five categories of errors were defined and analyzed for putative stimulus control, with the aim to identify requisite assessment components leading to more efficient and…

Scores derived from intelligence instruments predict many important outcomes in life, so it is not surprising that researchers and clinicians seek out interventions aimed at increasing these scores. Dixon et al. (J Behav Educ, 2019. https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2102/10.1007/s10864-019-09344-7) recently investigated the relation between instruction based on…

We evaluated the emergence of untaught second-language skills following directly taught listener and intraverbal responses. Three preschool children were taught first-language (English) listener responses (e.g., "Point to the horse") and second-language (Welsh) intraverbal responses (e.g., "What is horse in Welsh?" [ceffyl]).…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurobiological disorder that significantly impairs children's social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, and behaviors. Questions about theory of mind (ToM) deficits in ASD have generated a large number of empirical studies. This article reviews current studies of the relationship between ToM and…

One of the domains most commonly affected by autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is communication (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Language deficits in children with ASD can be as severe as to warrant a label as nonverbal, or characterized by difficulties with the functions of communication. Additionally, deficits in language for children…

Studies indicate that language impairment that cannot be accounted for by factors such as below-average non-verbal ability, hearing impairment, behaviour or emotional problems, or neurological impairments affects some 6% of school-age children. Language impairment with a receptive language component is more resistant to intervention than specific…

Two studies were conducted to evaluate the extent to which visual discrimination (VisD) skills play a role in developing letter identification abilities, which are essential in learning to read. Results from a correlational analysis of 73 4- and 5-year-olds revealed a significant association between VisD and letter identification abilities, which…

Executive functions, including working memory and inhibition, are of central importance to much of human behavior. Interventions intended to improve executive functions might therefore serve an important purpose. Previous studies show that working memory can be improved by training, but it is unknown if this also holds for inhibition, and whether…

This study explored the effects of a reciprocal teaching intervention designed to enhance the lecture comprehension skills of college students. Forty low-verbal ability students and 40 high-verbal ability students (as measured by SAT scores) were chosen for the study and randomly assigned to experimental or control groups. The experimental groups…

Overview: A recent evaluation of children who had participated in the Parent-Child Home Program (PCHP) as toddlers found that at kindergarten age, these children were performing at levels expected for their age, despite the fact that they had multiple factors putting them at risk for school failure. The Study: In the winter and spring of 2002, 135…