The present review sought to examine contemporary applied behavior analytic (ABA)-based assessment and curriculum protocols for teaching language skills to children with autism and evaluate the evidence supporting their reliability, validity, and effectiveness. Results of the literature search revealed the existence of 18 ABA educational…

There has been little explication of how university lecturers who are responsible for educating future practitioners approach the complexity and conceptual messiness of 'voice'. There are dangers of objectification if curricula simply foreground the UNCRC and are only concerned with utterances and the need to listen to children. This paper…

Spelling skills have been identified as one of the major barriers to written text production in young English writers. By contrast oral language skills and text generation have been found to be less influential in the texts produced by beginning writers. To date, our understanding of the role of spelling skills in transparent orthographies is…

Central coherence refers to an in-built propensity to form meaningful links over a wide range of stimuli and to generalize over as wide a range of contexts as possible. In children with autism this ability is diminished, and the impact of central coherence deficits in children with autism have previously been observed using static measures of…

The article discusses current evaluation methodologies used to assess the usability, user enjoyment, and pedagogical efficacy of virtual learning environments (VLEs) and serious games. It also describes the evaluations of two recently developed projects: a virtual learning environment that employs a fantasy 3D world to engage deaf and hearing…

Background/Objective: Problem-based learning (PBL) represents a major development and change in educational practice that continues to have a large impact across subjects and disciplines worldwide. It would seem that child and adolescent psychiatry, because of its inherently integrative, bio-psycho-social nature and emphasis on teamwork and…

With more children and young adults with severe disabilities in today's general education classrooms, SLPs and other professionals must be ready to support their students' communication skills with effective AAC. They'll get the proven strategies they need with this intervention guide from top AAC experts, ideal for use as an in-service…

Within the Australian education system, Aboriginal students' use of non-standard English features is often viewed simplistically as evidence of non-attainment of literacy and oral-English milestones. One reason for this is the widespread use of assessment tools which fail to differentiate between native-English speakers and students who are…

Comparative studies of forward and backward chaining have led some to suggest that sensitivity to each teaching procedure may be idiosyncratic across learners and tasks. The purposes of the current study were threefold. First, we assessed differential sensitivity to each chaining procedure within children when presented with multiple learning…

Purpose: This study investigated the effects of a communication partner instruction strategy for parents of children using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) on the communicative turn taking of their children. Instruction was provided within storybook-reading contexts. Method: Two single-subject multiple-probe-across-participants…

Intolerance of uncertainty and maladaptive information seeking are linked in many models of worry and clinical anxiety. This study aimed to examine children's use of information to regulate negative arousal associated with uncertainty in an exciting or threatening pretend play context. Children were presented with a positively or negatively…

In two experiments we examined how children's nonword pronunciations are influenced by learning words. In Experiment 1, children pronounced nonwords before and after learning words sharing orthographic rimes with the nonwords. These rimes varied in spelling-to-sound consistency and regularity. Children's nonword pronunciations were more sensitive…

This paper characterizes educational strengths and needs of children with cerebral palsy (CP) and connects research findings from the University of Michigan's Adapted Cognitive Assessment Lab (ACAL) to current special educational requirements. It acknowledges the uniqueness of educating a child with significant motor and communication disabilities…

Discrete-trials teaching (DTT) is commonly used to implement applied behavior analysis treatment for children with autism. The authors investigated a revised self-instructional manual for teaching university students to implement a 21-component DTT procedure to teach three tasks to confederates role-playing children with autism. Also, as a…

In this paper, we describe a quality checklist that parents, teachers, clinicians, and policy-makers with basic research skills can use to systematically evaluate the methodological quality of single-case studies on social skill training of children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). We provide a rationale for included quality indicators, and…