Purpose: This study investigated articulatory patterns for American English /[Voiced alveolar approximant]/ in children with and without a history of residual speech sound disorder (RSSD). It was hypothesized that children without RSSD would favor bunched tongue shapes, similar to American adults reported in previous literature. Based on clinical…

Individual differences in music traits are heritable and correlated with the development of cognitive and communication skills, but little is known about whether diverse modes of music engagement (e.g., playing instruments vs. singing) reflect similar underlying genetic/environmental influences. Moreover, the biological etiology underlying the…

Eye tracking research technologies are often used to study how individuals attend visually to different types of AAC displays (e.g. visual scene displays, grid displays). The assumption is that efficiency of visual search may relate to efficiency of motor selection necessary for communication via aided AAC; however, this assumption has not…

This research examines how the human genome and SES jointly and interactively shape verbal ability among youth in the U.S. The youth are aged 12-18 when the study starts. The research draws on findings from the latest GWAS as well as a rich set of longitudinal SES measures at individual, family and neighborhood levels from Add Health (N = 7194).…

Purpose: Previous research has demonstrated that typically developing children, verbal children with a diagnosis of autism, children with Down syndrome, children with developmental language disorder, and children with dyslexia can all benefit from orthographic support during word learning tasks. This study sought to determine if minimally speaking…

In order to make appropriate educational recommendations, psychologists must understand how cognitive test scores influence specific academic outcomes for students of different ability levels. We used data from the WISC-V and WIAT-III (N = 181) to examine which WISC-V Index scores predicted children's specific and broad academic skills and if…

Purpose: This research aimed to identify reliable tasks discriminating French-speaking adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD) from their peers with typical language (TL) and to assess which linguistic domains represent areas of particular weakness in DLD. Unlike English, morphosyntax has not been identified as a special area of…

Mobile technology provides increasingly accessible and normative tools for communication that does not require intelligible oral expression. For adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and complex communication needs, mobile technology presents opportunities for inclusive social experiences and additional modalities for communicating with…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are hypothesized to exhibit relative strengths in verbal and non-verbal reasoning and weaknesses in working memory and speed of information processing. The purpose of the present investigation was to determine the degree to which this cognitive profile as measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) app with transition to literacy (T2L) software features (i.e., dynamic text and speech output upon selection of a graphic symbol within the grid display) on the acquisition of 12 personally relevant single words for individuals with…

As a spoken word unfolds over time, similar sounding words ("cap" and "cat") compete until one word "wins". Lexical competition becomes more efficient from infancy through adolescence. We examined one potential mechanism underlying this development: lexical inhibition, by which activated candidates suppress…

Purpose: This study aimed to identify predictors of response to treatment for residual speech sound disorder (RSSD) affecting English rhotics. Progress was tracked during an initial phase of traditional motor-based treatment and a longer phase of treatment incorporating ultrasound biofeedback. Based on previous literature, we focused on baseline…

Atypical social communication is a key indicator of autism spectrum disorder and has long been presumed to interfere with friendship formation and first impressions among typically developing youth. However, emerging literature suggests that such atypicalities may function differently among groups of peers with autism spectrum disorder. The…

Attending preferentially to social information in the environment is important in developing socio-communicative skills and language. Research using eye tracking to explore how individuals with autism spectrum disorder deploy visual attention has increased exponentially in the past decade; however, studies have typically not included minimally…

We tested the capability of deaf adolescents, including a group of users of cochlear implants, to generate inferences during spoken language comprehension and whether they benefited from the use of sign-supported speech (SSS). Stimuli consisted of 24 short video-recorded texts in spoken language and in SSS. Participants responded to literal and…