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The investigators compared two techniques for teaching expressive vocabulary to late talkers: modeling with an expectant pause and modeling with an evoked child production. They also explored the influence of neighborhood density on children's real word learning. Three late talkers (ages 25-33 months) received two alternating vocabulary treatments (expectant pause and evoked production) in the home. Two participants were identified as having an expressive language delay, and one participant was identified as having an expressive and receptive language delay. During the expectant pause treatment, the clinician paused several seconds after each target word model, looking at the child expectantly. In the evoked production condition, after each target word model, a child was prompted to say the word using a cloze procedure of the modeled phrase. Both treatments were effective for all participants; no consistent advantage of one treatment technique over the other was noted. Two participants produced denser words than sparse words, one in early sessions and one in later experimental sessions, but a consistent pattern was not present across all participants. This study provided support for focused vocabulary intervention with late talking toddlers. Receptive language skills and word form characteristics may help explain individual variations in response to treatment for late talkers.

Parents and their children with severe expressive impairments may have limited successful communicative exchanges due to each partner's difficulty in recognizing and responding to communicative behaviors of the other. This study examined the communicative functions and modes of communication that received contingent responses in 20 dyads of parents and young children with severe expressive impairments. Parents responded more often to children's nonvocal behaviors and adult-directed behaviors than vocal behaviors and non-adult-directed behaviors (i.e., child gestures or vocal behaviors that were not conveyed toward the direction of the adult). The children responded more often to parent communication about goal-directed than non-goal-directed tasks. Implications of these results for communication intervention are discussed. (Contains 4 tables.)

Children with disabilities are reported to experience a high degree of directive parent interaction compared to typically developing children because of poor communicative or task skills. This study examines relationships between parent behaviors (directiveness and contingency) and child skills (language and motor) for children with physical or neuromotor impairments at risk for being nonspeaking during undirected incidental play. The only correlation between parent behavior and child developmental status was between physical directiveness and child motor scores. Previous reports of high directiveness that increase with degree of disability might be attributable to task instructions during object play, in which high physical directiveness would be required for this population. (Contains 4 tables.)

The authors compared parent-perceived communication behaviors for formally assessed stages longitudinally for 42 infants at risk for being nonspeaking. They compared perceived communication behaviors at assessed transitions to communicative stages (intentional behavior, intentional communication, symbolic communication) and found systematic differences between parent observations and formal observations of early skills. Parents' perceptions of an increase in their children's communicative signals and functions tended to occur at different points relative to each formally assessed transition. The results indicate that early communication transitions are not single qualitative shifts but a continuum of skills that are gradually developed and differently interpreted according to the means of observing the change.

The authors compared parent-perceived communication behaviors for formally assessed stages longitudinally for 42 infants at risk for being nonspeaking. They compared perceived communication behaviors at assessed transitions to communicative stages [...]

Parents and their children with severe expressive impairments may have limited successful communicative exchanges due to each partner’s difficulty in recognizing and responding to communicative behaviors of the other. This study examined the communicative functions and modes of communication that received contingent responses in 20 dyads of parents and young children with severe expressive impairments. Parents responded more often to children’s nonvocal behaviors and adult-directed behaviors than vocal behaviors and non-adult-directed behaviors (i.e., child gestures or vocal behaviors that were not conveyed toward the direction of the adult). The children responded more often to parent communication about goal-directed than non-goal-directed tasks. Implications of these results for communication intervention are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research project examined the context and interaction variables that were associated with reciprocity in communication interaction between adolescents using augmentative/alternative communication (AAC) systems and their non-disabled peers. The participants were five adolescents with physical and/or cognitive disabilities who communicated with various AAC systems and the non-disabled peers in their high school homeroom classes. Six interactive and communicative behaviors were coded on-line by investigators during 15 minute unstructured homeroom sessions. These interactions were coded for reciprocity, and situational variables that distinguished episodes of high and low reciprocity were compared. Results indicated clusters of context/interaction patterns that tended to co-occur with more balanced levels of communication behaviors between the interactants observed. Results are discussed in terms of seven specific guidelines that provide implications for clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]