This article presents a developmental perspective on language acquisition that can serve as a framework for understanding and treating the language and communication challenges faced by children with autism. Profiles of five children (ages 3-7) with autism spectrum disorders are discussed to illustrate the application of a Developmental…

A study involving 201 managers of speech and language therapy (SLT) services in England examined the use of Standards Fund money for SLT. Results indicate limited improvement in funding for SLT, however, the sum reaching SLT is 2.4 million pounds, which represents one-quarter of the target figure of 10 million. (Contains 9 references.) (Author/CR)

Probable ages of normalization were calculated for 24 children with speech delay, using Kaplan-Meier analysis. Formulas are provided that permit calculation of the likelihood that individual children will normalize by a given age. Analysis revealed two different paths to normalization with children following one of the paths likely to retain…

A study of 35 3-year-olds followed since infancy in a university-affiliated pediatrics clinic and 50 Native American children followed since infancy in a tribal health clinic found early recurrent otitis media with effusion was only associated with increased risk for speech disorder in the Native American children. (Contains extensive references.)…

A study of 20 multiple birth children (MBC) (ages 7-8) and 20 controls found MBC performed significantly more poorly on some tasks of phonological processing, and early phonological skills of MBC were correlated with poor performance on visual rhyme recognition, word repetition, and phoneme detection tasks five years later. (Author/CR)

A survey of 241 school-based speech-language pathologists examined numbers of confirmed and suspected concomitant speech/language disorders in children who stutter and the preferred intervention approaches. Of 467 children, 44 percent had a verified concomitant phonological and/or language disorder with additional children suspected of having such…

Two studies, one within subjects and the other across subjects, evaluated the efficacy of teaching sounds in developmental sequence to nine young children (ages three to five). Treatment of later-acquired phonemes led to systemwide changes in untreated sound classes, whereas treatment of early-acquired phonemes did not. Findings suggest…

A study compared 11 preschool children with developmental delays and 15 with autism to evaluate early vocal behaviors in young children with autism. Results indicated that children with autism did not have difficulty with the expression of well-formed syllables, however they did display significant impairments in vocal quality. (Contains…

This study used grammaticality judgments to measure the sensitivity of four school-age children with severe speech and physical impairments (SSPI) to different morphological errors. Results indicated that the SSPI children and control groups made similar judgments. Participants with SSPI had greater difficulty detecting tense-marking errors…

This case study follows Casey, a child with significant speech and language deficits, from age 4 years 2 months until 9 years 9 months. It focuses on a 9-month period starting at age 5 years 9 months during which a meaning-based phonological intervention was used to improve his intelligibility and language skills. Clinicians evoked frequent word…

Background: There are no systematic surveys of the UK prison population, but data from several sources suggest that a significant number of prisoners might have limitations in their speech, language and communication abilities. Aim: To examine the hypothesis that compared with the general population, a significantly larger number of the prison…

The present study investigated dysarthric symptoms in children with cerebellar tumors. Ten children with cerebellar tumors and 10 orthopedic control children were tested prior and one week after surgery. Clinical dysarthric symptoms were quantified in spontaneous speech. Syllable durations were analyzed in syllable repetition and sentence…

The present study investigated how well individuals knowledgeable about stuttering are able to make disfluency judgments in clients who speak another language than their own. Fourteen native speakers of Brazilian Portugeuse identified and judged stuttering in Dutch speakers and in Portugeuse speakers. Fourteen native speakers of Dutch identified…

The true impact of speech and language difficulties (SaLD) on children's lives and the effectiveness of intervention is unknown. Within other fields of paediatric healthcare, clinicians and policy-makers are increasingly emphasizing the utility of Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) studies and measures. SaLT has a variety of measures to assess…

Purpose: The primary goal of this case study was to describe the speech, prosody, and voice characteristics of a mother and daughter with a breakpoint in a balanced 7;13 chromosomal translocation that disrupted the transcription gene, "FOXP2" (cf. J. B. Tomblin et al., 2005). As with affected members of the widely cited KE family, whose…