The study compared several discourse characteristics of six linguistically normal and six language-disordered kindergarten children. While neither the linguistically normal nor the language-disordered groups had achieved an adult level of competence, normal children were much more aware of the interactive nature of discourse than…

Comparison of word fluency with seven high-functioning children with autism (ages 11-15) and controls of similar age and vocabulary level found that both groups performed equally well when generating words in response to familiar category cues, but autistic children performed significantly less well than controls when generating miscellaneous…

Studies are needed to better understand the broad autism phenotype in young siblings of children with autism. Cognitive, adaptive, social, imitation, play, and language abilities were examined in 42 non-autistic siblings and 20 toddlers with no family history of autism, ages 18-27 months. Siblings, as a group, were below average in expressive…

The pragmatic competence of 33 learning disabled (LD) children (grades 2, 4 and 6) was examined on a task that allowed for the separate assessment of linguistic and social knowledge, i.e., the ability to appropriately vary politeness and persuasive strategies as a function of listener status. LD and non LD Ss made requests of four imaginary…

This document reports on the quality assurance aspects of the tryout of three SWRL (Southwest Regional Laboratory) Communication Skills Programs: Reading, Composition, and Expressive Language. The sample population was both large and diverse, and a pattern of high proficiency was achieved both within program blocks or levels and across program…

Among results of a comparison of 20 language disordered and 20 control children (ages 7-10) were that only the nonhandicapped children changed the number of complete episodes narrated as a function of the listener's shared information, while neither group altered the accuracy of conjunctive use as a function of the listener. (Author/DB)

The acquisition of conversational response skills by young retarded and nonretarded children matched for chronological age and expressive linguistic ability was compared. Retarded Ss showed delayed response performance in comparison with controls matched for CA. When matched for language level, however, retarded children demonstrated significantly…

Twenty-one aphasic and seven nonaphasic adults participated in a referential communication task. Both aphasic and nonaphasic subjects successfully determined essential information to be communicated and communicated it to a listener. Nonaphasic and nonfluent aphasic subjects were more efficient in communicating information than mixed or anomic…

A teacher training coordinator stresses the importance of developing gifted children's communication abilities and briefly describes two group dynamics activities ("Circle Partners" and "Think Pink") for building listening, interpretation and discussion skills. (LH)

The study examined the expressive communicability (i.e., the amount, fluency, elaboration, clarity, and veracity of voluntarily transmitted information about oneself) and belief systems of 30 hospitalized adult schizophrenics and 30 matched normals. Schizophrenics differed from normals on all measures and the different beliefs predicted expressed…

Preschool children were paired in 12 speaker-listener dyads in which the speaker described common familiar items, and the listener attempted to guess their identity. Postfeedback, the speakers used longer, more informative descriptions for items originally failed and shorter, less informative descriptions for items successfully guessed on the…

Describes the development of an experimental measure for assessing growth in expressive communication in children from birth to 3 years of age Results from a sample of 50 infants and toddlers assessed monthly for 9 months in indicated that the measure displayed adequate psychometric properties of reliability and validity and was sensitive to…

Increasingly, employers require job seekers to submit their applications electronically. However, while most job seekers may be familiar with email and other modern communication technologies, they often wonder about the rhetorical strategies to be used in their messages. This article describes a case study of a job applicant to identify the…

The paper examines the use of concrete symbol systems to make the transition from presymbolic to formal symbolic communication for deaf blind students. Comments focus on expressive use of concrete symbols and address two issues requiring further research: (1) the critical features of referent objects, concrete symbols, and concrete symbol arrays…