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This paper sets out a research agenda for oral history in/and geography, with a particular focus on emotional historical geographies. With three families' relocation from inner‐city Glasgow to the new town of East Kilbride as the empirical backdrop, I argue that oral history methodology is uniquely well placed to capture both the emotionality and spatiality of historical narratives. Whilst previous reviews across geography and oral history theory have considered important emotional markers such as tone of voice, the expression of feeling and body language, I intervene by focusing on different narrative strategies employed throughout the interview and argue that the geographical remit of an interviewee's memories is inseparable from their emotional brevity. The focus of the paper is therefore threefold. Firstly, I consider the subjective temporalities and spatialities that oral history narrators employ when seeking composure, considering how they might "re‐place" their narratives (and thus themselves) in the interview setting. Secondly, I argue that how interviewees might "re‐place" themselves is inextricable, and as such so is any emotional reading of the interview, from the inter‐subjective relationship produced by such an encounter. Finally, I explore the implications of this methodology for carefully elaborating on the intersection between the intimate geographies of the home, and geographies of violence. How the interviewees witnessed domestic abuse among their families was moulded by the context of their relocation. Moreover, the inter‐subjective relationship, an analysis of which I argue is crucial to the findings of the paper, was also distinctly moulded by that same family context – as I was conducting these interviews with members of my own family. This paper establishes the merits of using oral history methodology to explore the emotionality and spatiality of historical‐geographical narratives. Using the new town of East Kilbride in the 1970s as a case study, I set out an emerging research agenda for the interaction between oral history theory and emotional historical geographies ‐ which in turn reveals new avenues for exploring the intimate geographies of domestic abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Humans often use co‐speech gestures to promote effective communication. Attention has been paid to the cortical areas engaged in the processing of co‐speech gestures. Aims: To investigate the neural network underpinned in the processing of co‐speech gestures and to observe whether there is a relationship between areas involved in language and gesture processing. Methods & Procedures: We planned to include studies with neurotypical and/or stroke participants who underwent a bimodal task (i.e., processing of co‐speech gestures with relative speech) and a unimodal task (i.e., speech or gesture alone) during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session. After a database search, abstract and full‐text screening were conducted. Qualitative and quantitative data were extracted, and a meta‐analysis was performed with the software GingerALE 3.0.2, performing contrast analyses of uni‐ and bimodal tasks. Main Contribution: The database search produced 1024 records. After the screening process, 27 studies were included in the review. Data from 15 studies were quantitatively analysed through meta‐analysis. Meta‐analysis found three clusters with a significant activation of the left middle frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus, and bilateral middle occipital gyrus and inferior temporal gyrus. Conclusions: There is a close link at the neural level for the semantic processing of auditory and visual information during communication. These findings encourage the integration of the use of co‐speech gestures during aphasia treatment as a strategy to foster the possibility to communicate effectively for people with aphasia. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject: Gestures are an integral part of human communication, and they may have a relationship at neural level with speech processing. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge: During processing of bi‐ and unimodal communication, areas related to semantic processing and multimodal processing are activated, suggesting that there is a close link between co‐speech gestures and spoken language at a neural level. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Knowledge of the functions related to gesture and speech processing neural networks will allow for the adoption of model‐based neurorehabilitation programs to foster recovery from aphasia by strengthening the specific functions of these brain networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Early intervention is recommended for pre‐school children with low language. However, few robustly evaluated language interventions for young children exist. Furthermore, in many interventions the theoretical underpinnings are underspecified and the 'active ingredients' of the interventions not tested. This paper presents a quasi‐experimental study to test the efficacy and examine the active ingredients of Building Early Sentences Therapy (BEST): an intervention based on usage‐based theory designed to support young children to understand and produce two‐, three‐ and four‐clause element sentences. BEST manipulates the input children hear to support them to harness the cognitive mechanisms hypothesized in usage‐based theories to promote the development of abstract linguistic representations. One such input manipulation is the use of signing alongside verbal input signalling both content and morphology of target sentences. Aims: To examine whether (1) BEST is more efficacious than treatment as usual (TAU); and (2) signing of content and morphology is an active ingredient of the intervention. Methods & Procedures: A quasi‐experimental study recruited children aged 3;5–4;5 years from 13 schools. Schools were assigned to receive either BEST with sign, BEST without sign or TAU. The TAU group received their usual classroom provision. Across arms schools were matched with respect to classroom oral language environment and indices of deprivation. Participants were 48 children (28 boys) with expressive and/or receptive language abilities ≤ 16th centile measured using the New Reynell Developmental Language Scales (NRDLS). Outcomes gathered by researchers blind to treatment arm were NRDLS production and comprehension standard scores and measures of production of targeted sentence structures. Outcomes & Results: Primary outcomes indicate that BEST with sign was significantly more efficacious than TAU with respect to NRDLS production standard score, but not comprehension. The advantage for production was maintained at follow‐up. BEST without sign was significantly more efficacious than TAU on measures of targeted vocabulary, sentence structure and morphology. The results from this quasi‐experimental study provide evidence for the efficacy of a usage‐based intervention on expressive language outcomes for preschool children with low language abilities. There is also evidence to support the inclusion of sign as an active ingredient, and so efforts to train interventionists in its use are worthwhile. Conclusions & Implications: Patterns of findings across outcomes suggest signing of content and morphology may support the development of abstract linguistic representations and accelerate language learning. Given these positive results and the scale of this study, a fully powered randomized controlled trial is warranted. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject: Robust language skills are crucial for positive social, emotional, academic and economic outcomes across the lifespan. There is a paucity of robustly evaluated interventions for preschool children with language difficulties. The development of such interventions is crucial for ameliorating language difficulties and promoting positive educational and psychosocial outcomes. What this study adds to the existing knowledge: This paper evaluates BEST, a novel usage‐based language intervention targeting children with language difficulties in the early years. Findings indicate that a usage‐based intervention is efficacious for treating language difficulties. In particular, BEST benefited expressive language development, bringing benefits to both treated and untreated language structures and improving standard scores. The role of sign as an active ingredient is also supported. Further evaluation is warranted. What are the practical and clinical implications of this work?: Findings suggest that BEST may be effective for targeting children who have been identified as having language difficulties. In particular, expressive language may be improved when the intervention is delivered as it was originally manualized, including a signing system to represent content and grammatical morphology. More broadly, these findings also provide preliminary evidence that the use of a signing system does not hinder oral language development in children with language difficulties and may conversely support their expressive language. Future research exploring the role and underpinning mechanisms of sign in language intervention is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There are only few guidelines on how instructional videos should be designed to optimize learning. Recently, the effects of social cues on attention allocation and learning in instructional videos have been investigated. Due to inconsistent results, it has been suggested that the visual complexity of a video influences the effect of social cues on learning. Objectives: Therefore, this study compared the effects of social cues (i.e., gaze & gesture) in low and high visual complexity videos on attention, perceived cognitive load, and learning outcomes. Methods: Participants (N = 71) were allocated to a social cue or no social cue condition and watched both a low and a high visual complexity video. After each video, participants completed a knowledge test. Results and Conclusions: Results showed that participants looked faster at referenced information and had higher learning outcomes in the low visual complexity condition. Social cues did not affect any of the dependent variables, except when including prior knowledge in the analysis: In this exploratory analysis, the inclusion of gaze and gesture cues in the videos did lead to better learning outcomes. Takeaways: Our results show that the visual complexity of instructional videos and prior knowledge are important to take into account in future research on attention and learning from instructional videos. Lay Description: What is already known about the topic: Instructional videos are widely used in education.Learners need to timely attend to relevant content to learn successfully.Learners' attention might be guided towards relevant content with social cues (gaze and gesture of a presenter or instructor) but findings regarding learning outcomes are inconclusive. What does this paper add: This paper is the first to examine the role of the visual complexity of an instructional video in the interplay between social cues (gaze and gesture), learners' attention allocation, and learning outcomes. Implications for practice: The results show that visual complexity influences the learners' attention allocation and learning outcomes.Social cues (i.e., gaze & gesture) improved learning outcomes when controlling for learners' prior knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As delays or disorders in early language and communication are the most prevalent symptom in children with disabilities, early screening is crucial to promote prevention, early diagnosis, and intervention. However, to the best of our knowledge, no screening tool is available for the joint assessment of early language and social communication skills in European Portuguese (EP)‐learning children, which is critical for screening, monitoring and enrolment in appropriate early intervention services. Aims: (1) To adapt and validate the EP version of the Communication and Symbolic Behaviour Scales Developmental Profile™ (CSBS DP™) Infant–Toddler Checklist, a parental report for the screening of early language and social communication skills. (2) To conduct a cross‐cultural comparison between the EP adaptation and the original US version. Methods & Procedures: A total of 611 EP‐learning children (ages 6–24 months) were assessed on the CSBS DP Infant–Toddler Checklist. Normative data, psychometric characteristics (i.e., internal consistency and test–retest reliability), and cross‐cultural comparison between the EP and the original version were explored. Outcomes & Results: Internal consistency ranged from good to excellent and the test–retest reliability was excellent. The performance of the EP and US samples matched on almost all scores. However, EP children performed significantly better than their American peers in the Social compositive at 22 months and in the Symbolic composite at 20 months. No further differences were found. Conclusions & Implications: These findings showed that the EP CSBS DP Infant–Toddler Checklist seems to be a reliable screening tool of communicative and symbolic behaviours for EP‐learning children, which can be particularly relevant for decision‐making in clinical practice. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject: Early communication skills are known to be related to later language outcomes. Thus, screening tools for the early identification of children at risk for language and communication impairments, which may lead to monitoring and early intervention, have the potential to promote better outcomes. However, to the best of our knowledge, no screening tool is available for the assessment of early communication abilities in EP‐learning children. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: This study adapted and validated the EP CSBS DP Infant–Toddler Checklist, the first published parental report checklist for the assessment of early communication skills in EP. It described the psychometric characteristics of the adapted checklist, summarized the newly available normative data for EP‐learning infants and toddlers, and compared the performance of EP‐learning children with the original standardization sample reported for American English. The results demonstrated that this tool is a reliable instrument for the early screening of language, communicative and symbolic behaviours for EP‐learning children between 6 and 24 months of age. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Given that early screening is crucial to promote prevention, early diagnosis and intervention, the availability of this tool is particularly relevant for children monitoring and their enrolment in appropriate early intervention services, helping decision‐making in clinical practice, in line with current guidelines regarding early monitoring and intervention to promote and support better outcomes. Thus, the tool and related normative data will be useful for paediatricians, family doctors, primary healthcare providers, developmental psychologists and speech–language therapists, among other professionals in the healthcare and educational fields, concerned with speech, language, and communication development and impairments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Individuals with developmental language disorder or Williams syndrome are reported to use more gestures than individuals with typical development. However, these two groups differ considerably in visuospatial and language skills, two skills that are hypothesized to shape gesture rate. Aims: We first examined whether children with both developmental language disorder and children Williams syndrome do indeed use more gestures. Our second aim was to disentangle the role of vocabulary and visuospatial skills in the use of supplementary gestures (i.e., containing unique information). To account for participant heterogeneity, analyses included both group comparisons and vocabulary and visuospatial skills at an individual level. As a third aim, the role of visuospatial skills was further examined in relation to gestures containing spatial content. Methods & Procedures: In a cross‐sectional group design, three participant groups watched and then retold a cartoon: children with typical development (n = 25), children with developmental language disorder (n = 25) and children/young people with Williams syndrome (n = 14). Their narrations were transcribed and hand gestures were coded based on gesture–speech integration (redundant, adds information to particular lexical items, gives information that is entirely absent from speech) and spatial content. Participants' expressive vocabulary and visuospatial skills were measured. Outcomes & Results: Between‐group comparisons showed that individuals with developmental language disorder or Williams syndrome did indeed use more gestures. Poisson loglinear modelling demonstrated that a relative higher use of supplementary gestures was determined by lower expressive vocabulary skills. Neither the group distinction nor visuospatial skills shaped the supplementary gesture rate nor spatial gesture rate. Conclusions & Implications: Regardless of neurodevelopmental condition or typical development, a higher use of supplementary gestures was influenced by expressive vocabulary skills. Children with lower vocabulary skills spontaneously capitalized on the multimodality of communication to express constituents that were not present in their verbal speech. This finding is a promising starting point for future gesture intervention studies examining whether implicit modelling of gesture use can encourage gestures even more in these children and if this allows them to achieve higher linguistic complexity. On a methodological note, the observed intra‐group skill variability demonstrates that group comparisons need to be complemented with correlational measures accounting for skills at an individual level. What this paper adds: What is already known on the subject: Children with developmental language disorder and children with Williams syndrome are more inclined to use gestures than typically developing children. Research conducted in adults with typical development points towards the role of lexical and visuospatial skills in gesture use, but it is unclear how these skills shape gesture use in children with atypical development. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: This study compares the rate of gestures that convey meaning that is not expressed in speech between the three aforementioned populations. Novel is the inclusion of the group distinction, individual lexical skills, and visuospatial skills in one encompassing statistical model. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: The inclination to use gestures that replace speech is related to lexical skills. Visuospatial skills do not seem to play a role and should not be considered as a factor when thinking about gesture intervention. Understanding how gestures relate to specific skills is a first step to understanding how gesture interventions can bolster language production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study was designed to produce a new parent‐report measure, the Diagnostic Receptive Expressive Assessment of Mandarin‐Infant Toddler Assessment of Communication and Language (DREAM‐IT) in order to provide norms for the developmental skills of children aged 0–36 months in four areas: expressive language, receptive language, cognitive play and social skills. Methodology: The scale was designed to be both broader and deeper than existing instruments that neglect one or more of these significant domains involved in early language. Items were chosen by a group of specialists with clinical experience working with the age group and with attention to the developmental literature. Caregivers were tested individually by a trained person who asked the questions and provided examples. In addition to an extensive health questionnaire, caregivers answered questions in Mandarin about their child's behaviour using a scale of 'not yet', 'sometimes' or 'always' or listing out words and/or sounds understood or said by the child. The 476 participating caregivers were recruited at maternal and child healthcare clinics centred in Chengdu, China, 191 of whom were tested a second time seven months later. The children were sampled in three‐month age‐bands from 0 to 36 months. The sample was balanced for child gender by age band, and parental education was balanced. Caregivers of 0–24‐month‐old children and caregivers of 12–36 months were each asked a different set of questions, to determine the appropriate age range and cutoff points for each question, requiring the sample size to be doubled for children aged 12–24 months. Results: The results were subject to item‐response theory analysis to remove outlying items, and the resulting internal reliability was high for each domain (average Cronbach's alpha=0.87). The final instrument (between 67 and 113 questions in total) was refined to include the least redundant questions that had the highest intercorrelations, with attention paid to coverage of all domains across the age range. Two scales were developed: one for children 0–18 months, the second for children aged 18–36 months. The longitudinal design permitted the creation of growth curves and norms for each domain for six‐month intervals from 0 to 36 months. A small sample of 32 parents of children with Down syndrome aged 18–36 months provided validation that the scales are highly sensitive to developmental delay. Conclusion: The instrument shows considerable promise for detecting early communication problems in children in China. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject: In China, efforts were made in recent years to develop language assessments for infants and toddlers, but limitations existed with the domains included and number of items included per age group. Many clinical practitioners also continued to rely on language subtests of general developmental scales, which were limited in depth and breadth of language skills tested and were never intended for diagnosis of language delay. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: This paper discusses the development of a valid caregiver report instrument for early communication and language skills of infants and toddlers in mainland China. The Diagnostic Receptive Expressive Assessment of Mandarin‐Infant Toddler (DREAM‐IT) includes foundational domains necessary for language and communication development in young children (receptive language, expressive language, cognitive play and social communication domains). The results show strong internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha) for each domain on a sample of 716 children sampled in three‐month age bands from 0 to 36 months. The external validity proved strong when tested on a group of 32 young children with Down syndrome. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Besides helping to inform the diagnosis of language delays in infants and toddlers in China, the caregiver report instrument has special features to support clinical practitioners in a field that is just emerging in China. The unique support features include the automatic generation of a profile of relative strengths and weaknesses of the child on the report and the recommendation of child‐specific caregiver coaching videos on a companion app. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Evidence shows that the relation with the referent (object manipulation, contact/no contact pointing) and the different hand features (index finger/open palm) when pointing indicate different levels of cognitive and linguistic attainment in typical development (TD). This evidences the close link between pointing, cognition and language in TD, but this relation is understudied in autism. Moreover, the longitudinal pathway these abilities follow remains unexplored and it is unclear what specific role (predictor or mediator) pointing and cognition have in both typical and atypical language development. Aims: The first aim was to investigate whether pointing hand features (index finger/open palm) and relation with the referent (manipulation, contact and no contact pointing) similarly predict language in children with and without autism. The second aim was to explore whether cognition mediates the longitudinal relationship between pointing and language development. Methods & Procedures: Sixteen children with autism, 13 children at high risk (HR) for autism and 18 TD children participated in an interactive gesture‐elicitation task and were tested on standardised cognitive and expressive language batteries in a longitudinal design. A two‐step analysis consisted of a stepwise linear regression and mediation analyses. First, the linear regression identified which hand features and types of relation with the referent predicted expressive language in all groups. Second, three mediation analyses (one per group) assessed the predictor/mediator role of the variables that met significance in the regression analysis. Outcomes & Results: Both cognition and index finger pointing were direct longitudinal predictors of further expressive language skills in the autism group. In TD and HR groups this relation was mediated by age. Conclusions & Implications: Findings highlight the role of age in communicative development, but suggest a key role of cognition and index finger use in the longitudinal relationship between pointing gestures and expressive language development in children with autism. This has important clinical implications and supports the view that index finger pointing production might be a useful tool in the intervention for communicative and language abilities in autism. What this paper adds: What is already known on the subject: There is evidence that no contact pointing is associated with complex socio‐cognitive abilities that underpin communication in TD. Similarly, studies in TD show that index finger pointing is closely linked with language acquisition. However, it is unclear whether these associations are present in autism. In addition, the mediating (or predictive) role of cognition in the pointing–language relation has not yet been explored neither in typical nor in atypical development. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: This paper shows that index finger pointing and cognition are direct longitudinal predictors of expressive language in the autism group. In the other groups this relation is mediated by age. This suggests that there is a window of opportunity for pointing to predict expressive language whereas the predictive value of cognition expands in development. Based on this, children with autism would share the same language predictors as TD children, but with delays. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: This study reveals that index finger, age and cognition reliably predict spoken language in autism, which may indicate that early prelinguistic intervention based on pointing production and the improvement of cognitive skills might have a positive impact on spoken language in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research into enhancing the effectiveness of information delivery in asynchronous video lectures remains sparse. This study analyzes the nonverbal teaching behaviours in asynchronous online videos, drawing comparisons between pre‐service and in‐service teachers (ITs). Objectives: This research primarily aims to juxtapose the nonverbal teaching behaviours, such as arm extensions and body orientation, utilized by pre‐service teachers (PTs) and ITs within asynchronous online videos. Methods: Asynchronous video lectures from four pre‐service and four ITs across four diverse subject topics were scrutinized. Leveraging deep learning technology, teachers' poses during their instruction towards a video camera were quantified, with a particular focus on arm stretch range and body orientation in relation to the subject being taught. Results: The findings revealed that PTs were deficient in effectively employing pointing gestures. Their arm stretches and body orientation towards the board were not differentiated across subjects. Conversely, ITs demonstrated subject‐specific variations in their arm extension and body orientation, signalling their effective strategies for knowledge dissemination. Conclusions and Discussion: This study emphasizes the importance of assessing nonverbal teaching behaviours in the development of effective instructional training. It accentuates the need for nonverbal communication and subject‐specific teaching strategy training in PTs. Future investigations could broaden their scope to include larger sample sizes and expanded subject areas to discern more comprehensive trends in nonverbal teaching behaviours. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: The proliferation of online and distance learning has been largely driven by the widespread utilization of asynchronous video lectures.However, the focus of video analysis regarding teaching practices has predominantly been on in‐class activities. This has resulted in the underdevelopment of methods for delivering knowledge through asynchronous video lectures.Research into enhancing the effectiveness of information delivery within asynchronous video lectures remains sparse. What this paper adds: This study contributes to the development of teaching techniques for asynchronous online lectures through a comparative analysis of nonverbal teaching behaviours between pre‐service and in‐service teachers within asynchronous lecture videos.The findings suggest that pre‐service teachers have a deficiency in knowledge regarding the effective use of demonstrative gestures. Implications for practice and/or policy: Considering the widespread use of asynchronous video lectures – including flipped and blend learning, the training of pre‐school teachers using video analysis is requiredThe creation of a robust metric for developing knowledge delivery methods is feasible and advisable, potentially by leveraging state‐of‐the‐art technology such as deep learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the construction of the identities of Philippe Curtius and his protégé Marie Grosholtz, known as Madame Tussaud, as providers of medical and health services, body workers, and entrepreneurs in key works that charted their experiences during the volatile period of the French Revolution. As purveyors of entertainment that derived its attraction from perceived close rendering of the likenesses of noteworthy individuals, modellers in wax required attentive discernment of bodies, or at least the capacity for imaginative descriptive skills, establishing a professional language for body work. Moreover, Tussaud's account explicitly foregrounds complex gender dynamics as a young woman interacting with the bodies of male and female clients. This essay explores how important eighteenth‐century gendered conceptualizations of body work are revealed in the body texts produced in this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prelinguistic communication complexity refers to the use of different communication forms such as eye gaze, gestures and vocalisations and the degree to which these forms are coordinated and how directed to a communication partner. To date, little is known about the relationship between prelinguistic communication complexity and expressive language in minimally verbal autistic children. Aims: To test the hypothesis that prelinguistic communication complexity predicts expressive language 12 months later in autistic children and explore whether there are any differences in specific prelinguistic intentional communicative behaviours that are related to later expressive language levels. Methods & Procedures: This longitudinal study examined 37 minimally verbal autistic children (29–71 months old). The Communication Complexity Scale (CCS) was used to measure participants' prelinguistic communication behaviours, which were extracted from a semi‐structured play interaction at Time 1. The Chinese Communicative Development Inventory (CCDI) was used to examine participants' expressive language at Time 1 and Time 2 (12 months later). According to Time 2 vocabulary size, participants were divided into two groups: Low CCDI, between 0 and 62 words, and High CCDI, more than 100 words. Linear regression was used to examine the relationship between early prelinguistic communication complexity and later expressive language. Binary logistic regression was used to determine which of the early communication behaviours were uniquely significantly related to later expressive language levels. Outcomes & Results: There was a significant positive relationship between prelinguistic communication complexity and expressive language 12 months later, even after controlling for age and concurrent language. Findings revealed a group difference in the frequency of gesture and vocalisation combinations between the Low and High CCDI groups at Time 1. Gesture‐vocalisation combinations also predicted better expressive language levels at Time 2. Conclusions & Implications: Our findings suggest that it may be beneficial to incorporate different complex communication behaviours into prelinguistic intervention targets for minimally verbal autistic children. The CCS hierarchies can be used as a reference for the intervention goals of minimally verbal autistic children. These findings highlight the importance of targeting gesture and vocalisation combinations when autistic children transition from single prelinguistic communication behaviours to multimodal behaviours. What this paper adds: What is already known on this subject: Children use eye gaze, gestures and vocalisations to communicate with others before they learn spoken language. There is strong evidence suggest that the frequency of prelinguistic communication predicts later linguistic achievements in autistic children. However, less is known about whether prelinguistic communication complexity also predicts later language and which specific behaviours are most predictive of language outcomes. What this study adds: Minimally verbal autistic children who exhibit more complex prelinguistic communication behaviours have better expressive language 12 months later. Gestures combined with vocalisations predict better expressive language in minimally verbal autistic children. What are the clinical implications of this work?: When identifying intervention targets for minimally verbal autistic children, the clinicians may reference the prelinguistic communication behaviours from the CCS. The gesture and vocalisation combinations are the key behaviours when targets transit from single form to two‐form behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Very young children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds often show poorer language development. Whilst there have been attempts to provide early intervention programmes, these sometimes miss the most disadvantaged groups. Aims: This report presents preliminary feasibility and effectiveness data for a novel language intervention designed for parents of toddlers in the United Kingdom. Methods and Procedures: In total, 43 UK families of 2–4‐year‐olds were recruited to the study, half of whom completed an 8‐week course (Tots Talking) focussed on parent interaction, and half of whom acted as wait‐list controls. Results and Outcomes: Results suggest that such programmes are feasible for families with 86% staying in the intervention. In addition, greater changes in underlying communication skills such as joint attention and gesture were evident compared to wait‐list controls. Conclusions and Implications: We conclude that pre‐verbal skills may be more important to measure as initial outcomes than language or vocabulary change in this population. What This Paper Adds: What is already known on the subject: Children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are at higher risk of communication difficulties and there is a need for community intervention programmes for very young children. What this study adds: This study suggests that such programmes can be feasible and effective, but that very early/basic communicative skills (such as joint attention) may be boosted first rather than language or vocabulary. What are the clinical implications of this work?: Children's centres and other community services could feasibly run short parent facing courses emphasising contingent communication in low SES families and other diverse groups. These may be more successful run with younger preschoolers. Joint attention may be a better focus of intervention before expecting vocabulary or language change. Community health professionals may find this information useful in referring and supporting families in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual reality has shown great potential in many fields, especially in business and psychology. By immersing someone in a new computer‐generated reality, it is possible to create realistic, safe, and controllable simulations for research and training, as well as new three‐dimensional‐enriched consumer experiences and services. Most of these environments, especially in the metaverse, rely on virtual representations of people called avatars. The design and non‐verbal behaviors of these avatars must be carefully crafted to provide a realistic and truly immersive experience. This paper aims to understand how avatar nonverbal behaviors (i.e., body posture, facial expression, and head movement) are perceived by users immersed in a virtual reality context, a very common situation encountered in many simulations and especially during training. Therefore, the first objective of this study is to validate, through an experiment with 125 participants, how the audience's levels of emotional valence and arousal are perceived in virtual reality. Based on these results, a library of audience non‐verbal behaviors corresponding to different arousal and valence levels is now available for future applications. The experiment also examines the benefits of using low‐end versus high‐end virtual reality headsets, and photo‐realistic versus cartoon avatars. The results have implications for the design of realistic, challenging, and interactive virtual audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Critically ill patients have the right to communicate and participate in their treatment to avoid adverse medical outcomes due to the severity of their illness, their responsiveness, and level of consciousness. This human right has often been neglected by health care professionals, as a result of limited alternative communication support provided to patients who are unable to speak due to, for example, endotracheal intubation. Despite the successful use of alternative communication strategies in critical care units (CCUs) in other countries, limited implementation in South African hospitals has been reported. Aims and objectives: This study aimed to determine the perspectives of South African nurses working in CCUs on the frequency of use of alternative communication strategies to support patient‐centred communication with critically ill adult patients. Design: The study followed a quantitative non‐experimental survey research design. Methods: A total of 210 nurses working in both private and public hospitals completed a survey on their perspectives on the use of alternative communication strategies in CCUs. Results: Nurse participants reported experience working with critically ill and communication‐vulnerable patients. Nurse–patient communication mainly involved the use of pen and paper, facial expressions and gestures to obtain information relating to patients' needs and their health history. Limited use of speech‐generating communication devices was reported. Conclusion: Nurse training on the use and implementation of alternative communication strategies, such as communication boards or electronic speech‐generating devices, should be investigated to improve nurses' communication with communication‐vulnerable patients in South Africa. Relevance to clinical practice: The results are applicable in clinical practice due to patients' need for alternative communication. The nurses mainly used low‐tech solutions, which are cheap and easy to access. However, there exists an opportunity to increase the use of available digital solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study explores which architectural features of interstitial spaces improve visitors' interactions with the overall museum space and with other visitors at the National Museum of the Islamic Revolution and Holy Defense in Tehran, Iran. Interstitial or liminal spaces are defined as "in‐between" spaces connecting primary spaces in a building that have a key role in relating humans to places. Objectives: This study asks which geometric features can increase the socio‐emotional interactions for visitors. Methods: To answer the question, observations of behavior and body language were made at the study site. These data were analyzed based on body language science and neuroscience literature. Five in‐between spaces connecting exhibition halls were selected, and visitor behaviors were observed and analyzed using the Observer XT software by Noldus. Results: Results showed that certain types of passages were associated with the highest levels of emotional interaction, while others are associated with the highest levels of social interaction. Conclusions: The results of this study align with earlier neuroscience findings regarding brain activities in relation to certain geometries. The methods used in this study can be applied by architects and designers in their predesign planning and post design evaluation processes to improve socio‐emotional interactions for visitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conversation, individuals work together to achieve communicative goals, complementing and aligning language and body with each other. An important emerging question is whether interlocutors entrain with one another equally across linguistic levels (e.g., lexical, syntactic, and semantic) and modalities (i.e., speech and gesture), or whether there are complementary patterns of behaviors, with some levels or modalities diverging and others converging in coordinated fashions. This study assesses how kinematic and linguistic entrainment interact with one another across levels of measurement, and according to communicative context. We analyzed data from two matched corpora of dyadic interaction between—respectively—Danish and Norwegian native speakers engaged in affiliative conversations and task‐oriented conversations. We assessed linguistic entrainment at the lexical, syntactic, and semantic level, and kinetic alignment of the head and hands using video‐based motion tracking and dynamic time warping. We tested whether—across the two languages—linguistic alignment correlates with kinetic alignment, and whether these kinetic‐linguistic associations are modulated either by the type of conversation or by the language spoken. We found that kinetic entrainment was positively associated with low‐level linguistic (i.e., lexical) entrainment, while negatively associated with high‐level linguistic (i.e., semantic) entrainment, in a cross‐linguistically robust way. Our findings suggest that conversation makes use of a dynamic coordination of similarity and complementarity both between individuals as well as between different communicative modalities, and provides evidence for a multimodal, interpersonal synergy account of interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deceptive behavior in negotiations has been found to be widespread and to have harmful consequences. This study shifts the current research direction on deceptive negotiation behavior by adopting a target's perspective on deception and by using a configurational theorizing approach. Prior studies in supply chain management (SCM) and in other disciplines have studied deceptive negotiation behavior—as one specific form of opportunism—based on correlational approaches. In doing so, they have focused almost exclusively on the actor's (i.e., deceiver's) perspective—for example, investigating actors' motivations for using deception. As a result, a profound understanding of deceptive negotiation behavior from a target's perspective is lacking. In three studies, this research investigates what factors, on both the firm and individual levels, combine to lead purchasing managers (i.e., targets) to perceive supplier deception. The configurational analysis uncovers considerably more combinations of firm‐level and individual‐level factors that lead to perceptions of high supplier deception than combinations that lead to perceptions of low supplier deception. Thus, the contribution is twofold: First, the studies shift the perspective from the deception source to the deception target. Second, they uncover the causally complex nature of perceived deception in negotiations. Managerial implications include that purchasing managers, in their efforts to detect supplier deception, should move beyond paying attention to isolated factors, such as body language, and instead should focus on different combinations of power balances, negotiation stakes, and negotiator proficiencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political apologies have been theorized to play an important role in healing and reconciliation processes in post‐conflict settings. Whether they actually fulfil this function, however, remains unclear as the voices and perspectives of victim communities have largely been underrepresented in research. To address this, we examined the role of apologies that were offered for the El Mozote massacre (El Salvador), the Jeju 4.3 massacres (Republic of Korea) and Bloody Sunday (United Kingdom), according to members of these communities and the broader public. Although we anticipated that victim community members should find the apology more valuable and meaningful and should, therefore, be more positive about its role in healing and reconciliation processes, we found that this varies across countries. This variation could be explained by people's trust in the country's institutions. Across the samples, we found that the apology was seen as a relatively important gesture. For the apology to be perceived as impactful, however, it had to be seen as a meaningful (i.e. sincere) gesture. Our findings suggest that apologies have a role to play in the aftermath of human rights violations, but that it is essential to take the broader context into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Compassion is important to patients and their families, predicts positive patient and practitioner outcomes, and is a professional requirement of physicians around the globe. Yet, despite the value placed on compassion, the empirical study of compassion remains in its infancy and little is known regarding what compassion 'looks like' to patients. The current study addresses limitations in prior work by asking patients what physicians do that helps them feel cared for. Methods: Topic modelling analysis was employed to identify empirical commonalities in the text responses of 767 patients describing physician behaviours that led to their feeling cared for. Results: Descriptively, seven meaningful groupings of physician actions experienced as compassion emerged: listening and paying attention (71% of responses), following‐up and running tests (11%), continuity and holistic care (8%), respecting preferences (4%), genuine understanding (2%), body language and empathy (2%) and counselling and advocacy (1%). Conclusion: These findings supplement prior work by identifying concrete actions that are experienced as caring by patients. These early data may provide clinicians with useful information to enhance their ability to customize care, strengthen patient–physician relationships and, ultimately, practice medicine in a way that is experienced as compassionate by patients. Public Contribution: This study involves the analysis of data provided by a diverse sample of patients from the general community population of New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racism is increasingly recognized as a determinant of health.1 The health impacts of racism are evident in all areas of medical care and surgery is no exception. Promotes a safe and inclusive health care environment and works to eliminate health inequities. Patients must always feel involved in their decision-making about their own care to achieve positive health outcomes and most importantly, experiences.22 Overt and subliminal racism is wrong and inadvertently affects healthcare delivery. As a professional community we need to practice cultural competence.24 If we understand the context and the bias in structural inequities in healthcare delivery, we can be culturally safe and better advocate for our communities leading to better outcomes. [Extracted from the article]