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Typically developing, American adolescents in Grade 10 (n = 38) ranked the relative importance of 14 communication skills in their friends' communication with them. The skills were considered those associated with figurative language (e.g., appropriate slang use), empathy (e.g., vocal tone comprehension), or discourse management (e.g., appropriate topic selection). Five skills emerged as more important and were primarily considered to be empathy-related communication skills. Four skills, representing a mix of figurative language and discourse management skills, were ranked as lower in importance. The remaining five skills were of intermediate or variable importance and a mix of discourse management and empathy-related communication skills. Results were similar to those of previous investigations with Australian adolescents. Adolescents' gender did not result in different rankings. Knowing what adolescents opine to be more and less important communication skills for positive peer relationships can help speech-language pathologists decide on intervention objectives to improve adolescents' peer relationships.

A large body of literature describing the narrative skills of young children with and without language impairments exists. However, there has been only limited study of the informativeness of narratives of adolescents with normally developing language (NL) and those of adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI), even though narratives play an important role in adolescents' complex social and academic lives and there is emerging evidence that narrative abilities in young children portend their later language proficiency. This study examined the informativeness of oral narratives produced by four groups of adolescents: younger adolescents with NL (mean age = 13 years:2 months), older adolescents with NL (15:10), younger adolescents with SLI (13:2) and older adolescents with SLI (15:9). The results indicated that the narratives produced by the SLI adolescents consisted of fewer informative and more irrelevant/inaccurate responses than the narratives of their peers with NL. The SLI adolescents also tended to give more vague responses in their narratives than their NL counterparts, as well tending not to provide any responses to the pictures representing the story. Taken together, these results painted a picture of SLI adolescents producing less satisfying, complete, and cohesive narratives, findings consistent with those of the research on children with SLI. Language status more than age appeared to be the factor that affected the likelihood of the adolescents providing or not providing informative responses. These results suggested that the performance of adolescents with SLI may not catch up to the level of performance of their NL counterparts during adolescence. (Contains 3 tables and 2 notes.) [This project was supported by the Catholic Education Offices of the Diocese of Parramatta and the Archdiocese of Sydney.]

Background: Challenging behaviour often serves a communicative function. It therefore stands to reason that the residential staff working in developmental disability services require training to foster appropriate communicative interactions with adults with challenging behaviour. Method: Eighteen members of staff working in three residential services participated in a 4 week communication training programme. The programme focused on staff attitudes to and beliefs about challenging behaviour, communicative interactions between staff and residents and working as a team. Objective measurements were made of the effects of the training programme on staff use of augmentative and alternative communication, praise and use of inappropriate language in a multiple-baseline design across three organizations. Changes in the rate of challenging behaviours among the residents were also evaluated. Results: As staff's use of AAC and praise increased, and inappropriate language decreased, there was some concomitant decrease in residents' levels of challenging behaviour; however, these results were not sustained in the long-term. Conclusion: This pilot data suggest that an approach to staff training based on modifying attitudes and beliefs is potentially beneficial to both staff and residents.

This article describes the systematic and detailed processes undertaken to modify a research methodology for use with language-impaired adolescents. The original methodology had been used previously with normally achieving adolescents and speech pathologists to obtain their opinions about the relative importance of selected communication skills for adolescents' positive peer relationships. Modifications attempted to address language-impaired adolescents' characteristic metalinguistic, literacy, cognitive, and information processing weaknesses. Revising the original wording of the communication skills, reducing the reading level of the skills from grade 10 to 4.6, using a Q-sort approach to ranking the importance of the skills, and revising the instructions and administration procedures led to what pilot testing results indicated was a valid methodology for use with language-impaired adolescents. Results of a preliminary study using the revised methodology suggested that language-impaired adolescents may perceive the relative importance of some communication skills differently from their normally achieving peers. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and 1 note.)

High school teachers (n=143) ranked 14 communication skills according to the perceived order of importance for Grade 10 adolescents' communication with them as teachers. Teachers tended to perceive skills associated with discourse management strategies as relatively more important than other skills. Science teachers ranked turn taking higher than humanities teachers. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

This study examined consonant cluster production, especially general trends and individual differences, in 16 typically developing 2-year-olds over six months. Data demonstrated that the toddlers could produce an increasing range of consonant clusters in word-initial and word-final position, although few could produce them correctly. Specific findings were compared to 10 language acquisition trends identified from the literature. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)

A study investigated the importance assigned by 100 adolescents to 14 communication skills under conditions of talking to peers and to teachers. Adolescents perceived that skills associated with empathy and considered to be addressee-focused were important for peer communication and skills related to discourse management strategies were important in teacher communication. (CR)

The impact of curricular revisions to a program for speech pathologists (independent learning, critical thinking, peer support) was examined for 78 graduates of the old and 21 of the revised program. Graduates of the revised program were significantly more positive about their preparation than were earlier graduates. (JOW)

The purpose of this article is to share a multicultural experience that took place in Guangzhou, China. The authors of this article joined a group of speech-language pathologists and audiologists to provide a training program for teachers and special education teachers in Guangzhou. It is our hope that this life changing experience will spark interest in our fellow professionals to act and to get involved internationally.