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Purpose: This commentary describes how a grassroot-led partnership initiated by members of the organisations World Federation of NeuroRehabilitation and Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists is addressing the marginalisation of people with aphasia, through education and knowledge exchange related to communication partner training of health professionals. Result: A partnership between academics and healthcare professionals across Austria, Denmark, Egypt, Ireland, Greece, India, Serbia and the United Kingdom was established in 2020. Through bimonthly online sessions in 2021–2022 a Danish communication partner training program was introduced while six teams adapted and translated the training and its materials to their local contexts. Conclusion: A collaborative partnership enabled multiple translations of an existing communication partner training program for healthcare professionals working with people with aphasia to support a sustainable delivery model that is linguistic and culturally sensitive. This commentary paper focusses on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17 and also addresses SDG 10.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between language development and the frequency of social interaction (SI) behaviours during language acquisition in late-talking (LT) children who exhibit delays in expressive vocabulary development but have age-appropriate cognitive skills.Method: The research consists of a longitudinal study with a first test followed by two re-tests 5 months apart, in which LT children were compared to 5-months-younger typically-developing (TD) children.Result: Data showed that LT children performed significantly fewer initiation of SI behaviours, but no differences between groups in responding to SI behaviours were observed. Furthermore, LT children who have lower language comprehension scores initiate social interaction more frequently.Conclusion: The results showed that LT children seem to be less active in starting social interaction and participation, but, once they get involved, they respond similarly to TD children of comparable expressive language competence. Additionally, the correlation pattern between the frequency of SI behaviours and language functions showed that LT toddlers with more prominent receptive language delay are more interested in initiating interaction with their partner, thus suggesting that they need a partner's scaffolding to overcome this lack.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between language development and the frequency of social interaction (SI) behaviours during language acquisition in late-talking (LT) children who exhibit delays in expressive vocabulary development but have age-appropriate cognitive skills.Method: The research consists of a longitudinal study with a first test followed by two re-tests 5 months apart, in which LT children were compared to 5-months-younger typically-developing (TD) children.Result: Data showed that LT children performed significantly fewer initiation of SI behaviours, but no differences between groups in responding to SI behaviours were observed. Furthermore, LT children who have lower language comprehension scores initiate social interaction more frequently.Conclusion: The results showed that LT children seem to be less active in starting social interaction and participation, but, once they get involved, they respond similarly to TD children of comparable expressive language competence. Additionally, the correlation pattern between the frequency of SI behaviours and language functions showed that LT toddlers with more prominent receptive language delay are more interested in initiating interaction with their partner, thus suggesting that they need a partner's scaffolding to overcome this lack.