Cognitive Communication in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

ABSTRACT Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty connecting with others because they often lack the communication, social interaction, and play skills necessary for developing relationships with their peers. This article highlights the characteristics of four peer intervention programs described in the literature that have been successful in facilitating the social connections between children with ASD and their typical peers. The environments established for intervention, the role of the typical peer, and the role of the adult are described across the four programs. A fifth peer intervention program is introduced that focuses on establishing peer connections in the home of the child with ASD while facilitating bids and responses for behavior regulation, social interaction, and joint attention in the child with ASD and his or her typical peer in the context of play. Implications for practice are provided as clinicians consider the role peer mediation has in intervention planning and implementation for children with ASD. KEYWORDS: Intervention, autism spectrum disorders, peer mediation, children Learning Outcomes: As a result of this activity, the reader will be able to (1) explain the characteristics of effective peer intervention programs; (2) identify the role of the typical peer in peer intervention; and (3) describe adult intervention strategies used to scaffold social interactions among children with ASD and their typical peers

Identifiers of Language Impairment for Spanish–English Dual Language Learners

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if a standardized assessment developed for Spanish–English dual language learners (SEDLLs) differentiates SEDLLs with language impairment (LI) from children with typical language better than the translated/adapted Spanish and/or English version of a standardized assessment and to determine if adding informal measure/s to the standardized assessment increases the classification accuracy. Method: Standardized and informal language assessment measures were administered to 30 Mexican American 4- to 5-year-old SEDLLs to determine the predictive value of each measure and the group of measures that best identified children with LI and typical language. Discriminant analyses were performed on the data set. Results: The Morphosyntax and Semantics subtests of the Bilingual English–Spanish Assessment (Peña, Gutierrez-Clellen, Iglesias, Golstein, & Bedore, 2014) resulted in the largest effect size of the individual assessments with a sensitivity of 93.3% and a specificity of 86.7%. Combining these subtests with mean length of utterance in words from the child\u27s better language sample (English or Spanish) was most accurate in identifying LI and can be used with above 90% confidence. Conclusion: The Bilingual English–Spanish Assessment Morphosyntax and Semantics subtests were shown to comprise an effective measure for identifying LI; however, including a language sample is suggested to identify LI with greater accuracy