Parents' online coaching in the early intervention home program for toddlers with autism spectrum disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic: Manual development and feasibility study.

Early intervention improves the developmental progress among toddlers with ASD. Family involvement enhances the intervention outcome. This study aimed to develop and test the feasibility of an early intervention home program manual for toddlers with ASD. Method: This study involved three phases: (I) formulation of manual concept and content design (II) manual development through focus group discussion (n = 10) and content validation by experts (n = 9); (III) cognitive interview (n = 6) and feasibility study (n = 8). Result: Content Validity Index (I-CVI) for the developed manual ranged from .78-1.0, S-CVI/Ave .96, and S-CVI/UA .79. Cognitive interview among six parents reported that the manual was easy to understand. The feasibility study reported all eight parents benefitted from coaching sessions. Approximately 87.5% of the respondents found the program benefited their children and could easily implement the activities in their daily routines. Approximately 75% of respondents reported having greater confidence in managing their child's behaviors at home. Parent coaching using the developed home program is feasible and accepted by parents of a toddler with ASD. Further study should be developed to explore the effectiveness of parent coaching using the manual.

Language abilities and associated risk factors of school-aged children with cleft lip and palate.

Previous research on children with cleft lip and palate (CLP) reported unequivocal findings with regard to language skills, with the majority suggesting persistent difficulties in early childhood. While expressive language deficits improved with age, receptive language skills were consistently lower than peers. Further study investigating the long term and persistent impact of language deficits amongst school-aged children with CLP is warranted. This was a cross-sectional study, aimed to determine the language abilities and explore the associated risk factors in Malay speaking children with CLP in Malaysia. Fifty-two children with CLP aged 7- to 12-year-old participated in this study. Language skills were assessed using the Malay Preschool Language Assessment Tool and the adapted Subway-School-age Language & Assessment Measures. Findings revealed that 14 (26.92%) school-aged children with CLP demonstrated language deficits. Children with CLP performed significantly poorer in reading comprehension (p = 0.031) and narrative (p = 0.026) skills. It was found that the age significantly influenced total receptive language score (ß = 0.421, p = 0.003) and total expressive language score (ß = 0.477, p = 0.000). Findings suggested that children with CLP may continue to have persistent language deficits into their school-age years. Recommendations for regular monitoring of language performance especially for those from younger age groups is warranted to help maximize school attainment.

Children's Comprehension of Object Relative Sentences: It's Extant Language Knowledge That Matters, Not Domain-General Working Memory.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine whether extant language (lexical) knowledge or domain-general working memory is the better predictor of comprehension of object relative sentences for children with typical development. We hypothesized that extant language knowledge, not domain-general working memory, is the better predictor. Method: Fifty-three children (ages 9-11 years) completed a word-level verbal working-memory task, indexing extant language (lexical) knowledge; an analog nonverbal working-memory task, representing domain-general working memory; and a hybrid sentence comprehension task incorporating elements of both agent selection and cross-modal picture-priming paradigms. Images of the agent and patient were displayed at the syntactic gap in the object relative sentences, and the children were asked to select the agent of the sentence. Results: Results of general linear modeling revealed that extant language knowledge accounted for a unique 21.3% of variance in the children's object relative sentence comprehension over and above age (8.3%). Domain-general working memory accounted for a nonsignificant 1.6% of variance. Conclusions: We interpret the results to suggest that extant language knowledge and not domain-general working memory is a critically important contributor to children's object relative sentence comprehension. Results support a connectionist view of the association between working memory and object relative sentence comprehension. Supplemental Materials: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5404573.