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This chapter showcases a program that involves college student leaders to teach about the civil rights movement to K-12 students in local public schools. Voices of a student leader and high school teacher speak to the program's impact on them personally and professionally, and provide broader lessons for cultivating student leadership through the lived practice of community action.

The purpose of this study was to investigate which of the available Spanish sentence tests U.S. audiologists currently utilize to evaluate Spanish-speaking cochlear implant candidates. An online questionnaire was created and distributed nationwide. A total of 25 audiologists reported using the Spanish HINT and Spanish AzBio. Limitations regarding scoring and variability of accents were described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed spontaneous language samples of three-year-olds with a history of expressive language delay (late talkers) and age-matched controls using Dore's Conversational Acts analysis (1978) and Mean Length of Utterance (MLU; Brown, 1973). Differences were observed between groups in utterances classified as organizational device and miscellaneous. No differences were noted between groups in other pragmatic functions and the number of pragmatic functions that were used. Late talkers showed lower MLUs as compared to age-matched peers. Pragmatic language, in addition to morphosyntax, should be monitored in children with a history of early expressive language delay.

The purpose of this study was to examine attention allocation in toddlers who were late talkers and toddlers with typical language development while they were engaged in a word-learning task in order to determine if differences exist. Two-year-olds who were late talkers (11) and typically developing toddlers (11) were taught twelve novel pseudo-words for unfamiliar objects over ten training sessions. The toddlers' attention allocation during the wordlearning sessions was measured as well as their comprehension of the newly learned words. Late talkers showed reduced attention allocation to objects during word-training sessions, and also comprehended fewer of the novel words than toddlers with typical language development. Attention allocation was found to be a stronger predictor of word learning as compared to cognition and auditory comprehension. Reduced attention allocation may contribute to the early lexical delay characteristic in late talkers.

The purpose of this study was to understand vocabulary characteristics in toddlers who are late talkers (LT) as compared with age-matched (AM) and vocabulary-matched (VM) peers. The semantic categories (e.g., animals, foods, toys) and the percentage of nouns, verbs, and closed-class words in the vocabularies of 36 toddlers (12 LT, 12 AM, 12 VM) were examined. Results indicated that the semantic categories present in the vocabularies of toddlers who were LT were similar to those of VM peers but not of AM peers. Nouns represented the largest word class in all participant groups, but the percentage of nouns in the vocabularies of toddlers who were LT was less than the percentage of nouns in the vocabularies of AM and VM peers. These findings indicate that the vocabularies of toddlers who are LT may be atypical, rather than delayed. Clinical application and potential intervention strategies are discussed.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of phonotactic probability on sublexical (phonological) and lexical representations in 3-year-olds who had a history of being late talkers in comparison with their peers with typical language development. Method: Ten 3-year-olds who were late talkers and 10 age-matched typically developing controls completed nonword repetition and fast mapping tasks; stimuli for both experimental procedures differed in phonotactic probability. Results: Both participant groups repeated nonwords containing high phonotactic probability sequences more accurately than nonwords containing low phonotactic probability sequences. Participants with typical language showed an early advantage for fast mapping high phonotactic probability words; children who were late talkers required more exposures to the novel words to show the same advantage for fast mapping high phonotactic probability words. Conclusions: Children who were late talkers showed similar sensitivities to phonotactic probability in nonword repetition and word learning when compared with their peers with no history of language delay. However, word learning in children who were late talkers appeared to be slower when compared with their peers.

This study examined the influence of phonotactic probability on word recognition in English-speaking toddlers. Typically developing toddlers completed a preferential looking paradigm using familiar words, which consisted of either high or low phonotactic probability sound sequences. The participants' looking behavior was recorded in response to correctly-produced and incorrectly-produced forms of familiar words. Results indicate that toddlers were more sensitive to mispronunciations of high probability words as compared to low probability words. Toddlers' word recognition skills were more closely related to the frequency with which they have heard and produced phonological sequences, rather than word familiarity. These findings are discussed in terms of toddlers with expressive language delay.

This study examined the effectiveness of sensory desensitization training for 12 nonverbal children with autism to facilitate participation in an electrophysiological study assessing linguistic processing. Sensory desensitization was achieved for 10 of the 12 children and thus allowed collection of usable data in a passive linguistic paradigm. Application of such desensitization methods may be useful as a precursor to other assessment protocols for individuals who are difficult to test.

Background: Toddlers who are late talkers demonstrate delays in phonological and lexical skills. However, the influence of phonological factors on lexical acquisition in toddlers who are late talkers has not been examined directly. Aims: To examine the influence of phonotactic probability/neighbourhood density on word learning in toddlers who were late talkers using comprehension, production and word recognition tasks. Methods & Procedures: Two-year-olds who were late talkers ("n" = 12) and typically developing toddlers ("n" = 12) were exposed to 12 novel pseudo-words for unfamiliar objects in ten training sessions. Pseudo-words contained high or low phonotactic probability English sound sequences. The toddlers' comprehension, speech production and detection of mispronunciation of the newly learned words were examined using a preferential looking paradigm. Outcomes & Results: Late talkers showed poorer performance than toddlers with typical language development in all three tasks: comprehension, production and detection of mispronunciations. The toddlers with typical language development showed better speech production and more sensitivity to mispronunciations for high than low phonotactic probability/neighbourhood density sequences. Phonotactic probability/neighbourhood density did not influence the late talkers' speech production or sensitivity to mispronunciations; they performed similarly for pseudo-words with high and low phonotactic probability/neighbourhood density sound sequences. Conclusions & Implications: The results indicate that some late talkers do not recognize statistical properties of their language, which may contribute to their slower lexical learning. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Toddlers who are "late talkers" demonstrate reduced expressive vocabulary in the absence of physical, social, cognitive, or sensory impairment; they are usually identified at age 2, when they produce fewer than 50 words and do not combine words (Rescorla, 1989). This study analyzed spontaneous language samples of 10 late talking toddlers and 11 typically developing toddlers using Dore's primitive speech act analysis (1974). Late talkers did not produce as many pragmatic functions, and the ones that they do produce did not prompt continued interaction with a communication partner. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)