A study involving 205 children from the Danish island of Bornholm found significant paths from early language abilities at age 3 through expressive and receptive language in kindergarten via language awareness in kindergarten and word decoding in grade 2 to sentence reading in grades 3 and 4. (Author/CR)

Background: There has been no previous incidence survey of children referred to a speech and language therapy service in the UK. Previous studies of prevalence of specific communication difficulties provide contradictory data from which it is difficult to plan speech and language therapy service provision. Reliable data are needed concerning the…

Selective mutism (SM) is a rare and complex disorder associated with anxiety symptoms and speech-language deficits; however, the nature of these language deficits has not been studied systematically. A novel cross-disciplinary assessment protocol was used to assess anxiety and nonverbal cognitive, receptive language, and expressive narrative…

This study was a longitudinal examination (21 month follow-up) of language development in a pair of fraternal twins. One twin received a cochlear implant at age 20 months secondary to sensorineural hearing loss. The other twin had normal hearing. Data were obtained every 6 months following her initial cochlear implant stimulation. Both twins…

This guide was prepared to facilitate the practitioner's selection of formal tests for evaluating communicative behavior in clinical infant populations during the first year of life. Clinical instruments with particular emphasis on communication and emerging language and speech abilities were identified in terms of publishers' recommended…

The paper describes the application of a computer-assisted writing program in a special high school for learning disabled and dyslexic students and reports on a study of the program's effectiveness. Particular advantages of the Macintosh Computer for such a program are identified including use of the mouse pointing tool, graphic icons to identify…

Activities to Facilitate Nonvocal Language-Communication Boards, an activity guide providing augmentative communication systems to children who cannot effectively speak, was field tested with 51 severely handicapped children (6 months to 4 years old). All had a poor prognosis for developing speech. Language development scores from standard…

Language training for the non-verbal or language delayed child should utilize feedback to reinforce correct responses and should closely follow the syntactical development of normal children. The two basic areas of language training are receptive and expressive. Receptive language training includes attending and responding, following single phase…

Analysis of adult evaluation of children's linguistic output provides a basis for elaboration upon the work of McNeill (1970) and Brown (1970). When limited to the uttered words of a child paired with an utterance spoken at an earlier time, adults cannot judge the relative age of the children making those utterances; in fact, their predictions of…

As handicapped children are mainstreamed, regular classroom teachers must become more skilled in identifying and remediating language deficiencies. Available from: Allen Raymond, Inc., P.O. Box 1223, Darien, Connecticut 06820. (GW)

A severely handicapped four-year-old with Down syndrome received training in comprehension and expressive use of Rebus symbols representing new words and generalization of symbol use to the classroom. Significant increases in comprehension and expression scores and generalized symbol use occurred. Development of verbal expressive skills were also…

Examines the impact of specific language delay (LD) on peer interaction in preschool children. Interaction between three groups of dyads (normals and normals; normals and LD children; and between LD children) were studied. Normal children were more likely to initiate interaction with non-responsive partners and to dominate the interaction.…

Comparison of production and comprehension methods in teaching six 3-year-old language disordered children the relationship between semantic role and word order indicated the production method (the children produced sentences contrasting word order and meaning) was more effective than the comprehension method (the children responded to contrasting…