We investigated phonemic competence in production in three age groups of children (7 and 8, 10 and 11, 12 and 13 years) using rhyme and phoneme monitoring. Participants were required to name target pictures silently while monitoring covert speech for the presence or absence of a rhyme or phoneme match. Performance in the verbal tasks was compared…

This study investigated whether the novel Comic Strip Task (CST) could be used to detect Theory-of-Mind impairments (ToM) in 4- to 8-year-old children with high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Twelve children with either high-functioning autism or Asperger's Disorder and 12 typically-developing children completed the 21-item measure.…

Narratives require the integration of many different linguistic skills and can be used as an ecologically valid measure of child language development. This study investigated the narrative skills of 18 six- to seven-year-old prelingually deaf children who received simultaneous bilateral cochlear implants (CI) between 5 and 18 months of age. No…

Across multiple schools and sites, the impact of grade-at-intervention was evaluated for children at risk or meeting criteria for reading disabilities. A multiple-component reading intervention with demonstrated efficacy was offered to small groups of children in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade. In a quasi-experimental design, 172 children received the…

This study explored the effects of an evidence-based literacy program, ABRACADABRA, on the spelling abilities of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Twenty children with ASD aged 5-11 years were assigned to matched instruction and waitlist control groups. Children in the instruction group received 26 hrs of individualized, home-based…

This research addresses the challenges of assessing receptive language abilities in minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder by comparing several adapted measurement tools: a standardized direct assessment of receptive vocabulary (i.e. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-4); caregiver report measures including scores on the Vineland-II…

We examined processing of verbal irony in three groups of children: (1) 18 children with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HFASD), (2) 18 typically-developing children, matched to the first group for verbal ability, and (3) 18 typically-developing children matched to the first group for chronological age. We utilized an irony…

The present study investigated verbal and spatial working memory (WM) functioning in individuals with the neuro-developmental disorder Williams syndrome (WS) using WM component tasks. While there is strong evidence of WM impairments in WS, previous research has focused on short-term memory and has neglected assessment of executive components of…

The recent development in the measurements of spontaneous mental state understanding, employing eye-movements instead of verbal responses, has opened new opportunities for understanding the developmental origin of "mind-reading" impairments frequently described in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Our main aim was to characterize the…

The abilities of past and future episodic thinking develop hand in hand across the preschool years and are intimately connected in adults. Little is known, however, about the development of episodic thinking in middle childhood and how it is influenced by sociocultural factors. In the present study, one hundred sixty-seven 7- to 10-year-old…

The aim of this study was to investigate whether children with high-functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger's syndrome (AS) can be differentiated from each other and from typically developing children on their cognitive profiles. The present study included a total of 45 participants: children with autism (high-functioning autism or Asperger's…

Objective: To use confirmatory factor analysis to test the construct validity of the proposed "DSM-5" symptom model of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), in comparison to alternative models, including that described in "DSM-IV-TR." Method: Participants were 708 verbal children and young persons (mean age, 9.5 years) with mild to severe autistic…

The present study involved a systematic longitudinal analysis, with three points of assessment in the second year of life, of gestures/actions, word comprehension, and word production in a sample of very preterm infants compared to a sample of full-term infants. The relationships among these competencies as well as their predictive value on…

Previous work leaves open the question of whether children with autism spectrum disorders aged 6-12?years have delay in producing gestures compared to their typically developing peers. This study examined gestural production among school-aged children in a naturalistic context and how their gestures are semantically related to the accompanying…

The paper reports on the adaptation of a D-KEFS test battery for Slovakia. Drawing on concrete examples, it describes and illustrates the key issues relating to the transfer of test items from one socio-cultural environment to another. The standardisation sample of the population of Slovak pupils in the fourth year of primary school included 250…