Communication Interventions for Individuals with Severe Disabilities: Exploring Research Challenges and Opportunities

by Rose A. Sevcik Ph.D. (Editor), MaryAnn Romski Ph.D., CCC-SLP (Editor)

Overview

What does the latest research tell us about communication interventions for people with severe disabilities? Find out in this authoritative research volume, which investigates the effectiveness of today's communication interventions, synthesizes evidence from current studies, and identifies urgent research directions for the future.

Shaped by a conference of The National Joint Committee on the Communication Needs of Persons with Severe Disabilities (NJC),* this interdisciplinary book includes contributions from more than 30 top scholars from diverse fields, including psychology, special education, and speech-language pathology. Each chapter gives readers a brief summary of research studies on a key intervention topic, insights on research design and measurement challenges, thoughts on future advances, and real-world clinical and educational recommendations. Essential for the reference libraries of educators and professionals, this book offers powerful insights about today's communication interventions—and sets a clear agenda for tomorrow's groundbreaking research.

TOPICS COVERED:

• prelinguistic communication intervention for young children with intellectual disabilities
• challenging behavior and communicative alternatives
• interventions for children who are deafblind
• augmented language interventions for children with severe disabilities
• parents as partners in communication intervention
• the role of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic differences
• targeted and phenotypic communication interventions for children with Down syndrome or ASD
• issues related to research study design, including sample size, the effectiveness of randomized controlled trials, and integration of single-case and group designs
• assessment and measurement of communication and language skills in individuals with severe intellectual disabilities
• and more

*The NJC conference was funded by the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681250892
Publisher:	Brookes Publishing
Publication date:	06/02/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	376
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Rose A. Sevcik, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Developmental Psychology Doctoral Program. She is the founding co-director of the university's Area of Focus: Research on Challenges to Acquiring Language and Literacy and a member of the Center for Research on Atypical Development and Learning (CRADL). She has made significant contributions to the field of developmental and learning disabilities and language and reading intervention research through more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, chapters, and books and numerous presentations at national and international conferences. She has been an investigator on 12 federally funded projects (NIH, IES) with a long history of working with schools. Dr. Sevcik is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the International Society of Augmentative and Alternative Communication. She also is a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and past President of its Communication Disorders Division. A member of the National Joint Committee on the Communication Needs of Persons with Severe Disabilities, she is also on the Board of Directors for the United States Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication.

MaryAnn Romski, Ph.D., is Regents Professor of Communication, Psychology, and Communication Sciences and Disorders at Georgia State University, Director of the Center for Research on Atypical Development and Learning and a founding member of the Center on Research on Challenges to Acquiring Language & Literacy. Dr. Romski is a certified speech-language pathologist with more than 40 years of clinical experience, a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), and the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication. She received ASHA Honors in 2015. Her research program focuses on the communication development of children with developmental disorders who encounter difficulty speaking, particularly the development and evaluation of computerized communication interventions. Dr. Romski has published 3 books, more than 100 articles and chapters, and has given numerous national and international presentations. She is AAIDD’s representative to the National Joint Committee on the Communication Needs of Individuals with Severe Disabilities (NJC).

Read an Excerpt

Read an excerpt
What Is the State of the Evidence

Table of Contents

About the Editors
About the Contributors
Foreword Author    Leonard Abbeduto
Preface
Acknowledgements

I. Communication Interventions for Individuals with Severe Disabilities: What Is the Evidence?


1. What Is the State of the Evidence?
   Nancy C. Brady, Martha E. Snell, and Lee K. McLean


2. Prelinguistic Communication Intervention for Young Children with Intellectual Disabilities: A Focus on Treatment Intensity
   Tiffany G. Woynaroski, Marc E. Fey, Steven F. Warren, and Paul J. Yoder


3. Challenging Behavior and Communicative Alternatives
   Joe Reichle and Mo Chen


4. Research on Communication Intervention for Children Who Are Deafblind
   Charity Mary Rowland and Amy T. Parker


5. Are We There Yet? Targeted and Phenotypic Communication Interventions for Children with Down Syndrome or Autism Spectrum Disorder
   Stephanie Yoshiko Shire and Connie Kasari


6. Augmented Language Interventions for Children with Severe Disabilities
   Ashlyn L. Smith, R. Michael Barker, Andrea Barton-Hulsey, MaryAnn Romski, and Rose A. Sevcik


7. Parents as Partners in Effective Communication Intervention
   Ann P. Kaiser, Lauren H. Hampton, and Megan Y. Roberts


8. Putting It Together: Discussion Synthesis of Communication Interventions for Individuals with Severe Disabilities
   Ellin B. Siegel, Diane Paul, and Lorraine Sylvester


II. Challenges for Communicative Intervention Research: Design Method Issues


9. Behavioral Heterogeneity in People with Severe Intellectual Disabilities: Integrating Single-Case and Group Designs to Develop Effective Interventions
   William J. McIlvane, Anne-Therese Hunt, Joanne B. Kledaras, and Curtis K. Deutsch


10. Randomized Controlled Trials: Do They Tell Us What We Want to Know About Interventions for People with Severe Disabilities?
    R. Michael Barker and David J. Francis


11. Boxed in by Small Sample Size? Some Ways Out of the Box
    Roger Bakeman


III. Challenges for Communication Intervention Research: Measuring Outcomes


12. Recent Innovations in the Assessment of Auditory Discrimination Abilities in Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities Who Are Nonspeaking
    Richard W. Serna


13. The Role of Cultural, Ethnic, and Linguistic Differences
    Katherine T. Rhodes and Julie A. Washington


14. Measuring Communication and Language Skills in Individuals with Severe Intellectual Disabilities
    Billy T. Ogletree


15. Where does Social Validity Measurement Fit into Identifying and Developing Evidence-Based Practices?
    Howard Goldstein


16. Section Discussion Summary: State of the Evidence: Research Design and Measurement Issues
    Krista M. Wilkinson, Beth A. Mineo, Diane Paul, and Christine Regiec


IV. The Future


17. Communication Interventions for Individuals with Severe Disabilities: Research and Practice Gaps, Opportunities, and Future Directions
    Rose A. Sevcik and MaryAnn Romski

Editorial Reviews

“ This book provides thorough overview of the research evidence on interventions for individuals who experience significant communication challenges. Equally as important is that it points the way forward and provides a roadmap for the next decade of research in this important area. Bravo to the National Joint Committee for this exciting and timely synthesis!

Pat Mirenda