Infant screen media and child development: A prospective community study.

The current study examined longitudinal associations between early screen media exposure (assessed at 6, 12, and 24 months) and the child's motor and language/communication development at the ages of 24 and 36 months. We also aimed to study whether these associations varied by socioeconomic status (SES). Participants were 179 parent-infant dyads, recruited from well-baby clinic services during routine visits.

Developing Reading Skills in Prelingually Deaf Preschool Children: Fingerspelling as a Strategy to Promote Orthographic Learning.

The aim of this study was to clarify whether fingerspelling provides a sophisticated mechanism that promotes the development of detailed orthographic knowledge for deaf individuals even in the absence of paralleling phonological knowledge. An intervention program comprised of various procedures chaining between fingerspelled sequences; their written correlates and meaning were administered in a multiple probe single-subject research design across semantic categories to four children with severe to profound prelingual hearing loss (age 4.2-6 years).

Factors predicting school staff's responsivity toward students with intellectual and developmental disability and complex communication needs.

Background: Children with significant intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are characterized by substantial language delays. Responsivity, the quantity and quality of the communication partner's responses to child's behaviors, is a key component in communication development.

Aims: The aim of the study was to map multidimensional factors predicting school staff's responsivity toward communication of students with IDD with complex communication needs.

Sequence Learning in Minimally Verbal Children With ASD and the Beneficial Effect of Vestibular Stimulation.

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and especially the minimally verbal, often fail to learn basic perceptual and motor skills. This deficit has been demonstrated in several studies, but the findings could have been due to the nonoptimal adaptation of the paradigms. In the current study, we sought to characterize the skill learning deficit in young minimally verbal children with ASD and explore ways for improvement.

Creativity in Autism: An Examination of General and Mathematical Creative Thinking Among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Children with Typical Development.

This study investigated creative thinking abilities among two groups of 20 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) compared to 20 children with typical development ages 9-11. The study compared performance on two different creativity tests: general creativity (Pictorial Multiple Solutions-PMS) test versus mathematical creativity (Creating Equal Number-CEN) test, and investigated relationships between general and mathematical creative thinking across various cognitive measures including non-verbal IQ, verbal and non-verbal working memory and Attention. Results of the study demonstrate significant correlations among the measures of creativity indicating that the PMS and the CEN tasks represent different skills, or perhaps, different domains of creativity.

Profiles of vocalization change in children with autism receiving early intervention.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) commonly present with comorbid language impairment, negatively impacting their learning and participation across settings. Addressing these needs requires a detailed understanding of their communication trajectories. In this study, we used the language environment and analysis (LENA) system to examine possible changes in children's (a) vocalizations and (b) ratio of speech to nonspeech vocalizations over a 10-month period.

Structure Mapping in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Levels of Information Processing and Relations to Executive Functions.

Analogical reasoning was investigated among children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) without intellectual disabilities and typical development (TD). Children were asked to select one of two targets in two conditions: (1) with and without spatial structure similarity; (2) with and without a perceptual distractor. Results demonstrate that children with ASD were able to select targets based on structural similarity, but this ability decreased to chance level when presented with a perceptual distractor.

The Effect of Educational Software, Video Modelling and Group Discussion on Social-Skill Acquisition Among Students with Mild Intellectual Disabilities.

Background: People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) often demonstrate difficulties in social skills. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a comprehensive intervention program on the acquisition of social skills among students with mild IDD.

Method: Single subject multiple baseline design across situations was used for teaching five school-age children with mild IDD social skills embedded in school-based situations.

Identifying patterns of communicative behaviors in girls with Rett syndrome.

The purpose of this study was to investigate behaviors of girls with Rett syndrome under different conditions and to determine if there were patterns of functional communicative behaviors. Six communication protocols portraying familiar and non-familiar activities were created to assist in identifying specified behaviors. The protocols incorporated activities and pre-scheduled interruptions designed to enhance communicative behaviors.

Word processing as an assistive technology tool for enhancing academic outcomes of students with writing disabilities in the general classroom.

This study investigated the use of a word processor for enhancing the academic outcomes of three students with writing disabilities in a junior high school. A single-subject ABAB design was used to compare academic output produced during class time with and without a computer equipped with a word processor. The number of spelling errors, the number of reading errors, and the number of words used per text were counted, and the overall structure and organization of text were examined across all in-class materials.

Effects of a computer-based intervention program on the communicative functions of children with autism.

This study investigated the use of computer-based intervention for enhancing communication functions of children with autism. The software program was developed based on daily life activities in the areas of play, food, and hygiene. The following variables were investigated: delayed echolalia, immediate echolalia, irrelevant speech, relevant speech, and communicative initiations.

Effects of intelligence level and place of residence on the ability of individuals with mental retardation to identify facial expressions.

This study was designed to investigate the abilities of individuals with mental retardation to recognize and match emotional facial expressions from a series of photographs depicting various facial expressions. There were four groups of participants according to their place of residence (community or institution) and their intelligence level (mild or moderate). Each individual participated in two tasks: (1) recognizing a facial expression from an array of three pictures presented, and (2) matching a facial expression from one picture with a picture depicting a similar emotion from an array of three pictures.

Translucency and Complexity: Effects on Blissymbol Learning Using Computer and Teacher Presentations.

Purpose: A single-subject alternating treatment design was used to (a) evaluate the influence of translucency (i.e., the guessability of the symbol when the referent is known) and complexity (i.