Search

The ability to narrate past personal events is important for classroom participation and socio-emotional wellbeing. Although school-age children with Down syndrome show significant challenges producing personal event narratives, there is little research to guide personal narrative intervention. This study used a single subject experimental design to investigate the effectiveness of a personal narrative intervention program aimed at enhancing children's ability to include narrative elements when sharing a personal narrative. Eight children with Down syndrome participated in two intervention sessions a week over 7 weeks. Progress was measured as inclusion of narrative elements in response to three types of prompts: an open prompt, the child's own photo, and a generic photo of children engaged in a familiar activity. Parents completed a post-intervention survey to determine social validity and feasibility. Following intervention, five participants demonstrated significant progress on the open prompt, whereas three participants failed to make significant progress on any of the prompts. Although the results highlight the feasibility of the intervention and demonstrate the effectiveness for at least five of the participants, recommendations are provided to guide further work in this important area to help facilitate social inclusion for this group of children.

Students with autism often show challenges in social communication, particularly in initiating and responding behaviors. While the classroom offers a natural context for peer interactions, few interventions are designed specifically for classroom settings. This study investigated the effects of a classroom-teacher implemented social communication intervention, known as "Social Stations," on the initiating and responding behaviors of students with autism. The study was set in an inclusive primary school, with the teacher embedding the intervention into the student's daily literacy lessons. All students with autism showed significant improvements in the targeted behaviors, with improvements maintained over time. This study suggests that social communication interventions can be implemented by teachers as part of a daily classroom program.

Background and aims: The ability to communicate is a fundamental skill required to participate in school. Students with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have persistent and significant language difficulties that impact daily functioning. However, the impact of DLD on the academic achievement of primary and secondary school-aged students has received limited attention. Methods: A systematic review of the empirical research published between 2008 and 2020 was undertaken to identify studies that have examined the academic achievement of school-aged students with DLD within curriculum areas. A total of 44 studies were identified that met inclusion criteria for review. Results: Students with DLD demonstrated difficulties with academic achievement across all measured curriculum areas compared to their typically developing peers. Most studies focused on literacy skills, including reading, spelling, writing and narratives. Conclusions and implications: The performance of students with DLD was heterogeneous with individual students demonstrating relative strengths in some areas of academic achievement. The implications of these results for educational practices and future research are discussed.

We used parent-report data from a prospective longitudinal study to better understand the early strengths in written skills often observed in preschoolers on the spectrum. Consistent with previous research, children demonstrated relative strengths in standardized written communication compared to spoken communication scores on the VABS-II. We found no significant links between children's performance on the written communication subdomain and their autism characteristics or the Social Interaction Deviance Composite score on the CCC-2. Our results emphasize the need for further research into the early strengths in written skills of preschoolers on the spectrum. From a clinical viewpoint, we highlight the need for a comprehensive emergent literacy assessment in this group of children who are at high risk of persistent literacy difficulties.

The teaching of reading is a core priority across the education sector. In an attempt to better prepare our next generation of professional teachers of reading, academic staff at an Australian university implemented coursework changes that were designed to enhance the phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge of first-year preservice teacher education students. All students were asked to complete written surveys measuring phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge during class-time at the start and end of their first semester of study. During the semester, students were expected to complete two online modules on phonological awareness and orthographic conventions and pass an online quiz (worth 10% of their grade) as part of their course on the Teaching of Reading and Writing. Education students' performance in phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge improved significantly over the course of the semester. However, a significant percentage of students failed to achieve mastery level in phoneme-level awareness. Implications and future directions for current higher education practices are presented.

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at increased risk of persistent language and literacy difficulties. This study investigated the effectiveness of an 8-week parent-implemented shared book reading intervention designed to change parent and child book reading behaviours. Sixteen parents and their preschoolers on the autism spectrum participated. Nine parents were randomly allocated to receive the shared book reading intervention first. The intervention used a coaching model and comprised a training session, four home visits, and four follow-up phone calls. Parents completed a shared book reading video with their child prior to the intervention, immediately post-intervention and eight weeks after the intervention was completed. Following intervention, there was a significant increase in the intervention group parents' use of book-related vocabulary and their explicit teaching of story structure, compared to the waitlist control group. Compared to the control group, there was a significant increase in children's verbal participation (number of utterances and number of different words). However, these effects disappeared when the significant increase in reading duration following the intervention was taken into account. All improvements were maintained over time. Our results highlight the feasibility of a parent-implemented shared book reading intervention for encouraging early language skills in children on the spectrum in a naturalistic setting that is part of many family routines.

Purpose: The adolescent developmental task of establishing autonomy from parents is supported through various aspects of executive functioning, including critical thinking. Our aim was to investigate younger and older adolescent language performance in form, content, and use in response to a moral dilemma task. Method: Forty-four typically developing adolescents completed a language sampling task, responding to stories that contained a moral dilemma for one of the characters. Two age groups participated: younger adolescents (n = 24, 12;2-13;11 [years; months]) and older adolescents (n = 20, 16;1-17;11).Participants produced a monologue in response to an open-ended question prompt. Responses were transcribed and analyzed for discourse production on measures of form (verbal productivity and syntactic complexity) and content (semantic diversity and word percentages in three semantic domains: affective, social, and cognitive). Language use was evaluated using a coding system based on Bloom's revised taxonomy of thinking. Results: There were no significant group differences in performance on measures of syntactic complexity and semantic diversity. Significant differences were found in adolescents' language using Bloom's revised taxonomy. The younger adolescents demonstrated a significantly higher proportion of utterances at Level 1 (remembering and understanding) compared to older adolescents, while the older age group produced a higher proportion at Level 3 (evaluating and creating). Conclusions: The moral dilemma task was effective in demonstrating the growth of adolescent language skills in use of language for critical thinking. The results highlight the clinical utility of the moral dilemma task in engaging adolescents in discourse involving critical thinking, whereas the associated coding scheme, based on Bloom's revised taxonomy of thinking, may differentiate levels of critical thinking and provide direction for intervention.

Students with autism often show challenges in social communication, particularly in initiating and responding behaviors. While the classroom offers a natural context for peer interactions, few interventions are designed specifically for classroom settings. This study investigated the effects of a classroom-teacher implemented social communication intervention, known as Social Stations, on the initiating and responding behaviors of students with autism. The study was set in an inclusive primary school, with the teacher embedding the intervention into the student's daily literacy lessons. All students with autism showed significant improvements in the targeted behaviors, with improvements maintained over time. This study suggests that social communication interventions can be implemented by teachers as part of a daily classroom program., Author(s): Bronwyn M. Sutton [sup.1] , Marleen F. Westerveld [sup.2] [sup.3] , Amanda A. Webster [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) B.E.ST Autism Therapy, , 1/249 Harts Road, Indooroopilly, QLD, Australia (2) [...]

Background and aims: The purpose of the current exploratory study was to describe the inferential narrative comprehension skills of young school-age children on the autism spectrum who, as a group, are at high risk of significant and persistent reading comprehension difficulties. Our aim was to investigate whether the anticipated difficulties in inferential narrative comprehension in the group of children with autism could be explained by the children's structural language ability as measured using a broad-spectrum standardized language test. Methods: The participants were 35 children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), aged between 5;7 and 6;11, who attended their first year of formal schooling, and 32 typically developing (TD) children, matched to the ASD group for age and year of schooling. Children on the autism spectrum were divided into below normal limits (ASD_BNL, standard score [less than or equal to]80; n = 21) or within normal limits (ASD_WNL, standard score >80; n = 14) on a standardized language test. All children participated in a narrative comprehension task, which involved listening to a novel story, while looking at pictures, and answering eight comprehension questions immediately afterwards. Comprehension questions were categorized into factual and inferential questions, with further categorization of the inferential questions into those tapping into the story characters' internal responses (mental states) or not. Children's responses were scored on a quality continuum (from 0: inadequate/off topic to 3: expected/correct). Results: Our results showed significantly lower scores across factual and inferential narrative comprehension in the ASD_BNL group, compared to the ASD_WNL and TD groups, supporting the importance of structural language skills for narrative comprehension. Furthermore, the TD group significantly outperformed the children in the ASD_WNL group on inferential comprehension. Finally, the children in the ASD_WNL group showed specific difficulties in answering the internal response inferential questions compared to their TD peers. Conclusions: Results from this exploratory study highlight the difficulties children on the autism spectrum may have in inferential narrative comprehension skills, regardless of sufficient structural language skills at word and sentence level. These findings support the importance of routinely assessing these narrative comprehension skills in children on the spectrum, who as a group are at high risk of persistent reading comprehension difficulties. Implications: In this study, we demonstrate how narrative comprehension can be assessed in young school-age children on the autism spectrum. The scoring system used to categorize children's responses may further assist in understanding children's performance, across a quality continuum, which can guide detailed goal setting and assist in early targeted intervention planning.

Purpose: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at increased risk of experiencing difficulties with the development of literacy, including the emergent literacy skills recognized to underpin conventional literacy success. Comprehensive assessment is essential. Characteristics of ASD can make assessment challenging, and this can be compounded when children are unable to demonstrate their skills using spoken language. The purpose of this clinical tutorial is to outline the process of emergent literacy assessment for children with ASD who have limited verbal communication skills. A case example of a 5-year-old boy is presented. Method: Pertinent literature is reviewed around the literacy profiles of children with ASD, the subgroup of children with ASD who have limited verbal communication skills, key components of emergent literacy, and previous research examining the emergent literacy abilities of children with ASD. The case report is described in depth and emphasizes the key factors to consider when designing an assessment battery and protocol. Results: The case example information is interpreted, and its application is discussed. Key outcomes are highlighted including a greater understanding of the child's literacy strengths and needs and the implications for individualized instruction. Conclusion: The clinical tutorial highlights the need for a comprehensive, well-planned assessment approach that involves all members of the educational team, and that is considerate to the needs of the individual child and responsive to their communication needs.

Background: As a group, autistic children with high support needs (with adaptive functioning in the range of an intellectual disability) are at risk of significant literacy difficulties. We investigated the parent‐reported home literacy environment of this group of children. Method: Sixty‐two parents of autistic children (4.5 to 18.25 years) attending an autism‐specific school completed a home literacy survey reporting on their child's: (1) alphabet knowledge, (2) interest in reading, (3) activities/interactions around books, (4) reading ability, and (5) writing ability. Results: We found significant positive correlations between parent‐reported child interest in reading and literacy‐related interactions and skills, but not with child age. Children using spoken words to communicate obtained significantly greater scores on four home‐literacy subscales, but not on reading interest. Conclusions: A better understanding of the home literacy activities of autistic children with high‐support needs is needed to inform educational practices aimed at promoting literacy development in this vulnerable population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used parent-report data from a prospective longitudinal study to better understand the early strengths in written skills often observed in preschoolers on the spectrum. Consistent with previous research, children demonstrated relative strengths in standardized written communication compared to spoken communication scores on the VABS-II. We found no significant links between children's performance on the written communication subdomain and their autism characteristics or the Social Interaction Deviance Composite score on the CCC-2. Our results emphasize the need for further research into the early strengths in written skills of preschoolers on the spectrum. From a clinical viewpoint, we highlight the need for a comprehensive emergent literacy assessment in this group of children who are at high risk of persistent literacy difficulties., Author(s): Marleen F. Westerveld [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.4] , Jessica Paynter [sup.1] [sup.2] , Dawn Adams [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1022.1, 0000 0004 0437 5432, Griffith Institute for Educational [...]

This study used data from a prospective community-based sample and compared the code-related emergent literacy skills (phonological awareness and letter knowledge) of 4-year-old children with ASD (n = 36) to their peers without ASD (n = 36), matched for age, gender, socio-economic status, language ability, and nonverbal cognition. We also compared groups on parent-reported home literacy measures, including the amount of time their child enjoyed being read to. There were no significant group differences in emergent literacy, indicating that an ASD diagnosis was not related to children's emergent literacy performance. We found no group differences in parent-reported home literacy experiences. This highlights the need for careful consideration of factors beyond ASD traits that may influence literacy outcomes in this population.

Preschoolers on the autism spectrum are at risk of persistent language and literacy difficulties thus research into shared book reading (SBR) in this group is important. We observed 47 parents and their verbal preschoolers on the spectrum sharing two unfamiliar picture books and coded the interactions for parent and child behaviors. Parents were able to engage their child in SBR and demonstrated a range of print- and meaning-related SBR behaviors with no evidence of a focus on print. Multiple regressions showed direct effects of parents' explicit teaching of story structure and use of questions on their children's verbal participation. Further research is needed to unpack the potential transactional relationships between parent and child SBR behaviors to inform early intervention.

Visual attention and active engagement during shared book reading are important for facilitating emergent literacy learning during the preschool years. Children on the autism spectrum often show difficulties in language and literacy development, yet research investigating potential indicators of shared book reading engagement, including visual attention and verbal engagement, for this group of preschoolers is currently limited. To better understand the relationship between children's visual attention and verbal engagement during shared book reading, parent shared book reading behaviors, and children's emergent literacy skills (e.g. receptive vocabulary and letter-name knowledge), we observed 40 preschoolers on the spectrum and their parents sharing an unfamiliar storybook. Videos of the shared book reading interactions were transcribed and coded for child and parent behaviors using observational coding schemes. Strong significant associations were found between children's visual attention, verbal engagement, and parents' use of questions and/or prompts during the shared book reading interaction. Contrary to expectations, children's visual attention was not related to their emergent literacy skills. Overall, our findings emphasize the interplay between parent behaviors and how preschoolers on the spectrum engage in this important literacy-related context and provide directions for future research.

Purpose: Persuasive communication skills are vital for achieving success in school, at work, and in social relationships. To facilitate assessment of persuasive discourse, we developed a clinically feasible persuasive speaking protocol and used it to compile a database of language samples. This database allowed us to describe the properties of adolescents' persuasive speaking skills. Method: We collected spoken language samples from 179 typically developing students in Grades 8-12, recruited from the United States and Australia. Participants were asked to persuade an authority figure to make a change in a rule or policy. Results: Language performance data reflecting both microstructural and macrostructural properties of spoken language were summarized and broken down by grade. We completed a factor analysis that documented three latent variables (syntax, discourse difficulties, and content). To test the validity of the persuasive measures, a subset of the participants completed an additional battery of assessments, which revealed weak to moderate relationships between the persuasive measures, general language ability, and working memory. There was no significant relationship between the persuasive language measures and an assessment of personality. Conclusion: Our persuasive language sampling protocol facilitated the collection of valid language performance data. The summary data can be used as benchmarks for clinical evaluations of adolescents suspected of having language difficulties.

The aims of this study were to examine speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) knowledge and consideration of factors found in research when making clinical decisions regarding AAC for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and to reveal additional factors identified based on SLPs' clinical practice. A 20-question mixed-methods survey was completed internationally by 187 certified SLPs. Overall, SLPs showed some familiarity with the research and considered factors found in research when making clinical decisions. SLPs also identified 20 factors that were not identified in the most recent systematic review that may predict, moderate, and/or mediate outcomes. This information may contribute to advancing clinical services regarding AAC as well as guide future research investigating the mechanisms by which children with ASD respond to AAC interventions.

Many children on the autism spectrum struggle in their reading development. This study investigated parents' views of challenges and facilitators to literacy learning at home and at school in children on the autism spectrum who were in their first year of schooling. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 37 parents revealed parents' in-depth knowledge of their child's strengths and interests, which they utilised to engage their child in literacy learning activities at home. Parents raised concerns about the support their children were receiving at school, with many describing challenges with teacher understanding of autism spectrum disorders, limited adaptation of the curriculum to suit the child's learning needs and poor communication between school and home. The study challenges schools and educators to review and refine current practices to ensure individualised, learner-focused and inclusive pedagogies and practices to better support children on the autism spectrum.

Initiating and responding to peers are social communication behaviors which are challenging for students with autism. We reviewed intervention studies set in mainstream elementary schools, which targeted these behaviors and reported on intervention outcomes as well as the resources required for their implementation. A total of 22 studies met the criteria for inclusion. Findings suggest that school-based interventions can increase the frequency and duration of initiating and responding behaviors in elementary school aged students with autism. These interventions were resource-intensive and usually delivered by researchers or teaching assistants away from the classroom. Future research should build on this emerging evidence base to consider interventions which could be implemented by classroom teachers as part of the classroom program.

This study aimed to investigate if a universal 24-week oral language and emergent literacy programme delivered to students in the first year of schooling positively impacts reading performance 2 years post intervention. Eighty-nine participants were second grade students from three primary schools in low socio-economic status areas. Using a controlled trial, the original study findings revealed larger gains in oral narrative, receptive vocabulary, and phonological awareness amongst students who received the intervention compared to those who received regular classroom instruction. At follow-up, student reading performance was compared using a standardised reading assessment. There were no differences between students who received the intervention and those who did not. To further investigate these findings, the oral language and emergent literacy skills of "average" and "below average" readers at the end of the first year of schooling were compared to assist in tailoring follow-up interventions. The implications for universal classroom-based programmes are discussed.

Purpose: Comprehensive spoken language assessment should include the evaluation of language use in naturalistic contexts. Discourse elicitation and analysis provides the opportunity for such an evaluation to occur. In this article, our overall aim was to describe adolescents’ language performance on four elicitation tasks and determine if there are task-related differences across the elicitation tasks. Method: Forty-four typically developing adolescents with ages ranging from 12;2 to 17;11 (years;months; M = 15;2; 21 boys and 23 girls) participated in the study. They completed four spoken discourse tasks: (a) story generation using a wordless picture book, (b) fable retell, (c) six personal narratives in response to emotion-based prompts, and (d) monologic response to two stories that contained a moral dilemma. Responses were transcribed and analyzed for four language performance measures tapping into language productivity, syntactic complexity, lexical diversity, and verbal facility. Results: Despite individual variability in performance, mean scores were close to median scores for most measures, suggesting a symmetrical distribution. As expected, all four language performance measures were significantly different across the four elicitation tasks. The personal narrative task elicited the longest samples, with the highest verbal fluency. In contrast, both lexical diversity and syntactic complexity were the strongest in response to the fable retell and the moral dilemma tasks. Conclusions: This investigation provides speech-language pathologists with an overview of how task-related factors may impact adolescent language performance. These findings may be used to support their clinical decision-making processes in choosing a suitable discourse task when conducting a comprehensive spoken language assessment. Three hypothetical case examples are used to illustrate the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preschoolers on the autism spectrum are at risk of persistent language and literacy difficulties thus research into shared book reading (SBR) in this group is important. We observed 47 parents and their verbal preschoolers on the spectrum sharing two unfamiliar picture books and coded the interactions for parent and child behaviors. Parents were able to engage their child in SBR and demonstrated a range of print- and meaning-related SBR behaviors with no evidence of a focus on print. Multiple regressions showed direct effects of parents' explicit teaching of story structure and use of questions on their children's verbal participation. Further research is needed to unpack the potential transactional relationships between parent and child SBR behaviors to inform early intervention., Author(s): Marleen F. Westerveld [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.3] , Jessica Paynter [sup.2] [sup.3] [sup.4] , Rachelle Wicks [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1022.1, 0000 0004 0437 5432, School of Allied Health Sciences, [...]

This study used data from a prospective community-based sample and compared the code-related emergent literacy skills (phonological awareness and letter knowledge) of 4-year-old children with ASD (n = 36) to their peers without ASD (n = 36), matched for age, gender, socio-economic status, language ability, and nonverbal cognition. We also compared groups on parent-reported home literacy measures, including the amount of time their child enjoyed being read to. There were no significant group differences in emergent literacy, indicating that an ASD diagnosis was not related to children's emergent literacy performance. We found no group differences in parent-reported home literacy experiences. This highlights the need for careful consideration of factors beyond ASD traits that may influence literacy outcomes in this population., Author(s): Marleen F. Westerveld [sup.1] [sup.2] , Jessica Paynter [sup.2] [sup.3] , Amanda Brignell [sup.4] [sup.5] , Sheena Reilly [sup.2] [sup.4] [sup.5] [sup.6] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1022.1, 0000 0004 0437 [...]

The aims of this study were to examine speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) knowledge and consideration of factors found in research when making clinical decisions regarding AAC for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and to reveal additional factors identified based on SLPs' clinical practice. A 20-question mixed-methods survey was completed internationally by 187 certified SLPs. Overall, SLPs showed some familiarity with the research and considered factors found in research when making clinical decisions. SLPs also identified 20 factors that were not identified in the most recent systematic review that may predict, moderate, and/or mediate outcomes. This information may contribute to advancing clinical services regarding AAC as well as guide future research investigating the mechanisms by which children with ASD respond to AAC interventions., Author(s): Stephanie B. Sievers [sup.1] , David Trembath [sup.1] , Marleen F. Westerveld [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1022.1, 0000 0004 0437 5432, Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University, , Parklands [...]

Purpose: This study described the oral narrative comprehension and production skills of verbal preschool-age children on the autism spectrum and investigated correlations between oral narrative ability and norm-referenced language test performance. Method: Twenty-nine preschool-age children (aged 4;0-5;9 years;months) with autism, who obtained an age-equivalent score of at least 36 months on the expressive communication subscale of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-Second Edition (Sparrow, Cicchetti, & Balla, 2005), participated. Children listened to an unfamiliar fictional narrative and answered comprehension questions afterward. After listening to the narrative a second time, children were asked to retell the narrative without picture support. Narratives were transcribed and analyzed for length, semantic diversity, grammatical complexity and accuracy, intelligibility, inclusion of critical events, and narrative stage. Results: All children participated in the comprehension task, and 19 children produced an analyzable narrative retell. Compared with published data on typically developing children, significant difficulties were observed in narrative comprehension, intelligibility, and grammatical accuracy. Most of the children told descriptive or action sequences, with only 1 child producing an abbreviated episode. Significant positive correlations were found (a) between performance on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Fourth Edition (Dunn & Dunn, 2007) and semantic diversity and narrative comprehension and (b) between parent-reported receptive communication competence (Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-Second Edition) and narrative comprehension. Conclusions: This study provides preliminary evidence of specific difficulties in oral narrative comprehension and production skills in verbal preschoolers on the autism spectrum

Personal narrative ability is crucial for social-emotional well-being and classroom participation. This study investigated the ability of 10 school-age participants with Down syndrome to share past personal experiences with their teacher aides in their school environment. To participate, children were required to speak in short sentences and be largely intelligible to unfamiliar listeners. Personal narratives were elicited using photo prompts, comprising a set of the child's own photographs and a standard set of photographs and accompanying verbal prompts, utilising a clinical language sampling protocol. Personal narratives were analysed on quality, syntactic complexity, verbal fluency and intelligibility. Examiner behaviour was evaluated for measures of syntactic complexity, mean turn length in utterances and number of utterances. Results indicated significant difficulties in producing quality personal narratives in both photo conditions. Examiner behaviour was negatively correlated to the participants' spoken language performance. Clinical implications are highlighted.

Purpose: This pilot study explored the effectiveness of an early storybook reading (ESR) intervention for parents with babies with hearing loss (HL) for improving (a) parents' book selection skills, (b) parent-child eye contact, and (c) parent-child turn-taking. Advancing research into ESR, this study examined whether the benefits from an ESR intervention reported for babies without HL were also observed in babies with HL. Method: Four mother-baby dyads participated in a multiple baseline single-case experimental design across behaviors. Treatment effects for parents' book selection skills, parent-child eye contact, and parent-child turn-taking were examined using visual analysis and Tau-U analysis. Results: Statistically significant increases, with large to very large effect sizes, were observed for all 4 participants for parent-child eye contact and parent-child turn-taking. Limited improvements with ceiling effects were observed for parents' book selection skills. Conclusion: The findings provide preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of an ESR intervention for babies with HL for promoting parent-child interactions through eye contact and turn-taking., Early storybook reading (ESR), also known as shared reading/joint book reading, has advantages over other play-based parent-child activities that aim to promote language and social communication skills for children as [...]

Background: The recent development of the Global TALES Protocol provides a unique opportunity to conduct systematic cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparisons of children's personal narratives. This protocol contains 6 scripted prompts to elicit personal narratives in school-age children about times when they experienced feeling happy/excited, worried, annoyed, proud, being in a problem situation, something important. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to examine the topics of the children's narratives when they responded to the 6 prompts and draw comparisons with the topics of narratives spoken by children from 10 other countries speaking 8 other languages as described in the original feasibility paper. Methods: We translated the Global TALES Protocol into Hindi and collected personal narratives of thirty Hindi-speaking children (aged 6–9 years), residing in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. All personal narrative samples were elicited in person and audio recorded for manual coding of the topics. Results: Although we observed many similarities in the topics of children's personal narratives between this dataset and the dataset reported on in the initial feasibility study, we also documented some novel topics, such as "welcoming guests" in response to the "excited" prompt; "financial problems" in response to the "worried" prompt; "helping someone by actions or by advising someone morally" in response to the "problem" prompt; and "mishap/personal loss" and "exams" in response to the "important" prompt. Conclusion: Some of these novel topics likely reflected the Indian culture. Because our study involved a group of children who are linguistically and culturally different from previous studies using the Global TALES protocol and, at ages 6–9 years, slightly younger than the 10-year-olds in prior studies, this study adds to the evidence that the Global TALES protocol can be used to elicit personal narratives of children from diverse languages and cultures, as young as age 6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This small-scale study explored the feasibility of the Global TALES protocol in eliciting personal narratives in typically developing monolingual Irish children, using the online Zoom platform. We investigated children's performance on measures of productivity (total number of utterances; total number of words) and syntactic complexity (MLU in words). We also documented the topics children talked about in response to the six emotion-based prompts contained in the Global TALES protocol. Methods: Nineteen typically developing children (6 male, 13 female), aged between 10.0 and 10.11 years produced personal narratives in response to the Global TALES protocol. Given COVID-19 pandemic-related public health restrictions, the language samples were elicited using Zoom. All stories were transcribed and analysed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts software. Qualitative content analysis was used to code the topics of the children's stories. Results: Sixteen participants responded to all prompts. One participant only responded to three of the six prompts. The prompt that was least successful in eliciting a response was the "problem" prompt; 15.7% (n = 3) of the children did not provide a response to this prompt. On average, children produced 40 utterances, although individual variability was high. On average, MLU was 8.7, ranging from 6 to 11. Children's topics closely resembled those reported in the Global TALES feasibility study despite the fact, the current study took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The most frequent topics were related to family (events, illnesses, relationships, siblings) and finding or fixing something. Conclusion: The Global TALES protocol was successful in eliciting personal narratives from 10-year-old Irish English-speaking children. Future larger scale studies are now needed to investigate if the results generalise to the wider Irish population with a view to create local benchmarks of personal narrative performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wealth of research has been conducted into emergent literacy (i.e., precursors to formal reading) skills and development in typically developing (TD) children. However, despite research suggesting children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at risk of reading challenges, limited research exists on their emergent literacy. Thus, we aimed to systematically review emergent literacy research with this population. Database searches from 1995 to 2015 yielded three articles that met inclusion criteria. Results suggested both strengths and challenges in emergent literacy skills in children with ASD. Significant links between emergent literacy skills and both oral language and nonverbal cognition were also found. The findings highlight the need for further research; future directions and implications are discussed.

This study investigated the emergent literacy and language skills of four-year-old children in New Zealand during their kindergarten year prior to school-entry. A total of 92 four-year-old children from a range of socio-economic areas were seen individually at their local kindergarten and were assessed on code-related measures (letter name knowledge, initial phoneme awareness, emergent name writing) and meaning-related measures (story comprehension and retelling ability). Approximately, 60% of the parents completed a home literacy questionnaire. Regression analyses showed no effect for age on any of the code-related measures. In contrast, significant effects for age were found on story comprehension and retelling ability. There were no differences in performance based on gender with two exceptions: Girls performed better than boys on letter name knowledge and early name writing. Questionnaire results suggested literacy activities were valued in the home environment with most parents reporting reading to their child each night, and the majority of parents reported owning more than 60 children's books. Results from the current study suggest more explicit teaching may be necessary within the kindergarten curriculum to facilitate the code-related skills linked to successful word recognition ability and early spelling development.