Efficacy of a parent-implemented early language intervention based on collaborative consultation.

A group of five preschool children with developmental disability and their mothers participated in a study into the efficacy of a parent-implemented language intervention. Each parent was included in the team as a consultee, with a speech pathologist and special educator acting as consultants within a collaborative consultation process. Treatment for each child was developed using this process, with specific strategies to increase language production skills decided by the team. Strategies were used within an interactive model of early language intervention. The effectiveness of treatment was determined within a multiple baseline design. For three children, the impact of treatment was evident, but the results were not replicated for the other two children. Descriptive analysis of mothers' communicative behaviours indicated that, following treatment, they tended to direct more utterances to their children, used more models, fewer questions and directives, and more (although limited) teaching strategies.

Sampling communicative behaviours in children with intellectual disability in structured and unstructured situations.

Structured 'communicative temptation' procedures administered by a clinician were compared to unstructured parent-child interactions in sampling intentional communicative acts in 11 subjects with intellectual disability. The subjects were assessed twice over a 5-7 month period. The results indicated that the structured condition was more effective in sampling Requests and Comments, with more Requests than Comments produced. The unstructured condition was more effective in sampling responses, but only during the second assessment. Although there was no difference in the total number of intentional communicative acts produced across assessment times, there was an increase in the use of linguistic forms during the second assessment: that is, the subjects used more speech and signs and fewer gestures and general vocalisations during the second assessment than the first. The findings suggest the usefulness of combining structured and unstructured conditions in providing information on the variety of children's communicative acts and the linguistic level at which these are expressed.

Influence of environmental enrichment and sex on predator stress response in rats.

Based on sex, rats were randomly assigned to either an enriched or standard environment for 30 days prior to behavioral testing. The predator stress testing consisted of placing the rat in a cat avoidance apparatus so that the rat's behavioral response to a natural stressor, the cat, could be assessed. The rats were subsequently exposed to a partial predator stimulus (cat urine) that was placed in the home cages for 7 days. Each animal was then sacrificed and the stomach, adrenal glands, and thymus gland were removed and assessed. Results indicated that 1) the enriched rats engaged in less defensive behavior than the standard rats during behavioral testing, 2) female rats demonstrated more defensive behavioral patterns compared to male rats, and 3) the enriched environment affected females more than males, as evidenced by the interaction effects on various recorded behaviors.