Communication Disorders Quarterly

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the influence of racial and ethnic backgrounds in children who stutter (CWS) with 18 specific coexisting disorders. A sample of 1,184 speech-language pathologists responded to a detailed questionnaire designed to answer questions about the type and prevalence of coexisting disorders in 2,535 CWS. Results suggest that 866 (34.1%) children from diverse racial and cultural backgrounds displayed six major coexisting disorders: learning disabilities, literacy disorders, attention deficit disorders, auditory processing disorders, neuropsychological disorders, and behavioral disorders. Measures of risk, relative risks, and odds ratio for racial and ethnic differences among groups of CWS were calculated. African American CWS show a higher risk for coexisting learning disabilities, literacy disorders, attention deficit disorders, and behavioral disorders than White, non-Hispanic, Hispanic, and Asian CWS. Males who stutter had a significantly greater number of coexisting disorders than females who stutter. A number of alternative interpretations are presented.

This study examined the level of preparedness of North Carolina speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who serve school-aged children with cochlear implants (CIs). A survey distributed to 190 school-based SLPs in North Carolina revealed that 79% of the participants felt they had little to no confidence in managing CI technology or in providing services to children with CIs. Survey results disclosed that 47% of SLPs had either no formal instruction or only one college lecture on CIs. Findings indicated that a lack of instruction in other hearing-related topics exists at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. These results underscore the urgent need for revising preservice curricula for SLPs and audiologists to include more practical training in the habilitation/rehabilitation of children with CIs. Findings also emphasize the need for current practitioners to engage in continuing education to update their knowledge of emerging innovations in CI technology and habilitation.

The concept of early intervening services was introduced into public school systems with the implementation of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004. This article describes a program developed for students with speech sound disorders that incorporated concepts of early intervening services, response to intervention, and progress monitoring to improve eligibility determination and dismissal decisions and to implement an efficient service delivery model for children with speech sound disorders in public schools. Data indicated that use of early intervening and response to intervention were efficient models for addressing speech sound errors within general education as an alternative to referral for an IDEA evaluation for children with mild speech sound disorders.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of Korean case particles in a Korean—English bilingual child with specific language impairment (SLI). The child's production of four types of Korean case particles were compared to those of three typically developing children during probe and storytelling tasks. The Korean—English bilingual child with SLI produced the vocative and the nominative for person case particles similar to children matched on age and mean length of utterance (MLU). He produced the nominative for object and accusative case particles similar to the MLU-matched child but exhibited lower performance than that of his age-matched peers. The results suggest that longer duration of Korean case particles in the phrase-final position may provide perceptual salience and not pose particular difficulty for the Korean—English bilingual with SLI. Frequent omission of the accusative by the child with SLI and his MLU-matched peer, however, supports the argument that frequency effect in linguistic input influences morphological development.

The purpose of this article is to describe the technologies and applications of digital videoconferencing (DVC) within the realm of communication sciences and disorders. The discussion includes (a) a brief description of videoconferencing, (b) an explanation of the types of DVC available along with the advantages and disadvantages of each, (c) applications of DVC in preservice and in-service settings, and (d) a discussion of potential applications in research venues. DVC can occur at varying levels, requiring differing technologies, support, and funding. Educators, practitioners, and researchers in communication sciences and disorders are encouraged to consider the application of DVC in the training and supervision of future professionals, in provision of services through telepractice, and in consultation models and in research endeavors.

This study was designed to determine the contributions of metalinguistic skill and psycholinguistic processing ability to children's ability to detect the ambiguity of sentences and the relationship among all three factors to early reading ability. A total of 20 first graders and 20 second graders were given tasks testing the following abilities: ambiguity detection, conservation, lexical processing, and reading comprehension. Although intercorrelations among all four tasks were highly significant, regression analyses indicate independent contributions of processing and metalinguistic skills to ambiguity detection, which is, in turn, the sole predictor of reading comprehension. A developmental sequence is hypothesized. The authors suggest that ambiguity detection can be used to identify children who are at risk for reading failure and that training in ambiguity detection can be used in reading-readiness training and as an intervention tool.