BACKGROUND: Our study contributes to the further understanding of the mechanism of foot reflexology. Foot reflexology has been reported to affect hearing recovery, but no physiological evidence has been provided. This lack of evidence hampers the acceptance of the technique in clinical practice.
METHODS: A girl was taken to North Sichuan Medical University Affiliated Hospital for a hearing screen by her parents. Her parents reported that her hearing level was the same as when she was born. The girl was diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) by a doctor in the otolaryngology department. After we introduced the foot reflexology project, the parents agreed to participate in the experiment. After 6 months of foot reflexology treatment, the hearing threshold of the girl recovered to a normal level, below 30 dB.
CONCLUSIONS: Foot reflexology should be encouraged in clinical practice and for families of infants with SNHL.

UNASSIGNED: Floating-Harbor syndrome (FHS) is a rare autosomal dominant inherited disease characterized primarily by short stature, delayed language development, and typical facial features. There are currently few case reports, diagnoses and treatments for these syndromes at home and abroad.
UNASSIGNED: This study reports a case of a boy with \"growth and language development delay\" as the predominant clinical manifestation. FHS was clinically diagnosed based on his growth hormone (GH) deficiency, significant bone age delay, left testicular hydrocele, and the whole exon gene in peripheral blood, which indicated heterozygous mutation of SRCAP gene. Following the treatment with recombinant human GH (rhGH), the child exhibited height increase benefits, and his articulation improved after language therapy.
UNASSIGNED: Genetic testing facilitates early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of the FHS. Additionally, treatment with rhGH effectively increases the height of these children, and language rehabilitation is especially important for their language development.

Caregivers use a of combination labeling, pointing, object grasping, and gaze to communicate with infants about referents in their environment. By two years of age, children reliably use these referent-oriented cues to communicate and learn. While there is some evidence from lab-based studies that younger infants attend to and use referent-oriented cues during communication, some more naturalistic studies have found that in the first year of life, infants do not robustly leverage these cues during dyadic interactions. The current study examined parent and infant gaze, touching, pointing, and reaching to referents for a wide range of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other early-learned words during 59 one-hour head-camera recordings sampled from one English-learning infants\' life between 6 and 12 months of age. We found substantial variability across individual words for all cues. Some variability was explained by referent concreteness and the grammatical category of the label. The parent\'s touching of labeled referents increased across months, suggesting that parent-infant-referent interactions may change with development. Future studies should investigate the trajectories of specific types of words and contexts, rather than attempting to discover possibly non-existent universal trajectories of parent and infant referent-oriented behaviors.

Interventions for parental training for families of hard of hearing children, including cochlear implant users, are identified as optimizing their developmental outcomes. In this single-case intervention study, we aim to describe the use of videofeedback in a remote environment, as well as to identify its effectiveness, based on the analysis of mother-child interaction, both for the mother\'s communicative behaviors and for the behaviors of the mother, receptive and expressive language of the child. Pre- and post-intervention measurements were performed, based on video analysis of the mother\'s interaction with the child, by blind judges, as well as through the application of assessment instruments for the child and the mother. There were 13 sessions, 3 of which were for evaluation before and after the intervention and 10 of teleconsultation sessions in which the videofeedback tool was used with the mother. Data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially, using the JT method, which determined the Reliable Change Index (BMI) and Clinical Significance. There was reliable positive change in the child\'s receptive and expressive language, as well as reliable positive change and clinically significant change in mother-child interaction after the 10 sessions of remote videofeedback intervention. Based on the reliable changes observed in this study, we present this model (televideofeedback) as a potential to optimize resources and efforts for therapeutic success in children\'s auditory rehabilitation, which should be studied in research with a rigorous method, for the broad recommendation of its use.
Intervenções para a capacitação parental de famílias de crianças com deficiência auditiva, incluindo as usuárias de implante coclear, são apontadas como otimizadoras em seus resultados de desenvolvimento. Neste estudo de intervenção de caso único, temos por objetivos descrever o uso do videofeedback em ambiente remoto, bem como identificar a sua efetividade, a partir da análise da interação da mãe e criança, tanto para os comportamentos comunicativos da mãe como para os comportamentos da linguagem receptiva e expressiva da criança. Medidas pré e pós-intervenção foram realizadas, a partir da análise de vídeos de interação da mãe com a criança, por juízes cegos, bem como pela aplicação de instrumentos de avaliação da criança e da mãe. Foram realizadas 13 sessões, sendo 3 de avaliação nos momentos pré e pós-intervenção e 10 sessões de teleconsulta em que se empregou a ferramenta de videofeedback com a mãe. Os dados foram analisados de forma descritiva e inferencial, por meio do método JT, que determinou o Índice de Mudança Confiável (IMC) e a Significância Clínica. Houve mudança positiva confiável na linguagem receptiva e expressiva da criança, bem como mudança positiva confiável e mudança clínica significativa na interação da mãe com a criança após as 10 sessões de intervenção remota com videofeedback. A partir das mudanças confiáveis observadas neste estudo, apresentamos este modelo (Televideofeedback), como potencial para otimizar os recursos e esforços para o sucesso terapêutico na reabilitação auditiva infantil, o qual deve ser estudado em pesquisas com método rigoroso, para a ampla recomendação de seu uso.

This case study describes the use of a syntax intervention with two deaf children who did not acquire a complete first language (L1) from birth. It looks specifically at their ability to produce subject-verb-object (SVO) sentence structure in American Sign Language (ASL) after receiving intervention. This was an exploratory case study in which investigators utilized an intervention that contained visuals to help teach SVO word order to young deaf children. Baseline data were collected over three sessions before implementation of a targeted syntax intervention and two follow-up sessions over 3-4 weeks. Both participants demonstrated improvements in their ability to produce SVO structure in ASL in 6-10 sessions. Visual analysis revealed a positive therapeutic trend that was maintained in follow-up sessions. These data provide preliminary evidence that a targeted intervention may help young deaf children with an incomplete L1 learn to produce basic word order in ASL. Results from this case study can help inform the practice of professionals working with signing deaf children who did not acquire a complete L1 from birth (e.g., speech-language pathologists, deaf mentors/coaches, ASL specialists, etc.). Future research should investigate the use of this intervention with a larger sample of deaf children.

(1) Background: While spoken language learning delays are assumed for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children after cochlear implant (CI), many catch up with their hearing peers. Some DHH children with CIs, however, show persistent delays in language, despite protective factors being in place. This suggests a developmental language disorder (DLD). However, at present there is little consensus on how to diagnose DLD in DHH children. (2) Methods: Given the lack of consensus in this area, a set of case studies provides an appropriate first step. The goal of this paper is to show the plausibility of a DLD diagnosis, following careful analysis of protective and risk factors. A retrospective case study review was conducted for three children. Their long-term language outcomes up to four years after CI were considered in the context of access to sound, speech sound discrimination, social skills and non-verbal cognition. (3) Results: It was possible to posit DLD in one child who had experienced good access to sound, alongside good speech discrimination abilities and social development, and normal non-verbal cognition, but who presented with severe language learning difficulties. (4) Conclusions: Finding markers for DLD in DHH children is important for diagnosis and intervention. The implications for clinical practice are discussed.

Propelled by immigration, language diversity is increasing in the United States, and more young children are exposed to two or more languages at home from birth. Known as dual language learners (DLLs), the benefits of this exposure include multilingual and multiliterate outcomes. However, DLLs introduce complexity for the pediatric provider\'s assessment of language development, identification of potential language delays, and timely referrals. If language delays are not promptly identified and followed with early intervention, they can persist and lead to poor outcomes across multiple domains.

UNASSIGNED: Parental report measures such as the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) are frequently used to study communicative skills of children under 3 years of age. Less is known about the usability of such reports for assessing communication skills in older children due to their advanced language skills, and a higher variety of communicative partners and communication contexts.
UNASSIGNED: To assess the concurrent and predictive validity of the Estonian (E) CDI-III at ages 3;0 and 4;0 years. The first research goal was to examine its concurrent variability-associations with teacher reports and directly measured language skills. The second goal of the study was to investigate the predictive validity of parent reports-the degree to which parent-and teacher-reported language scores for children at age 3;0 are useful for predicting examiner-administered language comprehension and production scores 1 year later.
UNASSIGNED: Estonian monolingual children were investigated longitudinally at ages 3;0 (n = 104; M age = 35.77 months, SD = 0.84; 42% males) and 4;0 (n = 87; M age = 48.18 months, SD = 1.16; 42% males) years. Children were assessed with the parent-reported ECDI-III, with teacher-reported assessments on children\'s talkativeness, vocabulary size and grammatical skills, and the examiner-administered New Reynell Developmental Language Scales IV (NRDLS).
UNASSIGNED: Results indicated significant positive relationships between the ECDI-III total scores, teacher reports, and directly measured language comprehension and production scores, demonstrating concurrent validity of parental reports of children language skills at both ages. When controlling for mothers\' education, children\'s gender, and reported language difficulties, parental and teacher reports were predictive of language production scores, whereas only parental reports predicted comprehension scores 1 year later. None of the controls was predictive of later language comprehension and production scores.
UNASSIGNED: In sum, good concurrent and predictive validity of the ECDI-III shows that the instrument is a valid tool for assessing communicative skills in Estonian children. Results suggest that parent reports can offer useable information also about communicative skills of children older than three years.

UNASSIGNED: Previous studies have focused on understanding parental attempts to record language development in children, across many typologically different languages. However, many of these studies restricted their assessment to children up to the age of 3 years. The aim of this paper was to move this boundary by examining language development in typically language developed children older than 3 years.
UNASSIGNED: Using the Croatian version of the Communicative Development Inventories III (CDI-III-HR), we investigated the contribution of parental reports of a child\'s lexical, grammatical, and metalinguistic awareness abilities to general language abilities assessed by clinicians. Participants included the parents of 151 children between the ages of 30 to 48 months, who completed the CDI-III-HR and reported on their child\'s language abilities.
UNASSIGNED: Our results show that age is significantly associated with the lexical, grammatical, and metalinguistic awareness abilities of a child\'s language development. These findings confirm that all three abilities increase with age and that parents can perceive changes in a child\'s language development. The subsections of CDI-III-HR were moderately to strongly associated with each other, with the strongest association being between lexicon and grammar, suggesting that they remain closely related after the age of 30 months. Parental assessments of a child\'s language development are a better predictor of language production than language comprehension, with grammar making the most consistent and significant contribution.
UNASSIGNED: This study confirms that the development of grammatical abilities is the most prominent skill between the ages of 30 to 48 months and that parents can observe the transition in the child\'s language development through their usage of grammar in words to grammar in sentences. Based on the selected sample of children, we discovered different patterns of parental success in assessing the child\'s language ability. These findings indicate that parents can act as valuable sources of information regarding the child\'s language abilities, but clinical assessments of early language development should consider many other formal sources of information in addition to parental reports.

This study investigated the effects of Sketch and Speak strategy intervention on expressive and receptive expository discourse for adolescents with language-related learning disabilities (LLD).
Three participants completed baseline and twelve 45- to 60-min individual treatment sessions in a multiple-baseline across participants design. In treatment, participants learned to take notes using pictography and conventional bulleted notes, orally generate sentences from their notes, and orally practice full sentences and oral reports. Session tests with varied levels of instructional support were used to collect outcome data on free-recall oral reports, short-answer question responses, and participant notes. A distal, age- referenced expository task and social validity questionnaires were administered pre-/postintervention.
Visual and statistical analyses revealed significant effects of treatment on the primary outcome measure of Oral Report Quality and on secondary outcomes of Note Quantity and Quality. There was no significant effect of treatment on Short-Answer Recall questions. Two participants generalized strategies during the treatment phase to independent performance on Oral Reports and one improved on Note Quality. All three participants improved on the distal expository measure. Social validity questionnaires showed participant awareness and buy-in of taught strategies, with potential for generalization at the high school level.
These adolescent students benefited from explicit instruction in note-taking strategies and systematic oral practice of expository discourse even within the challenging delivery setting of telepractice. This study provides evidence for the use of Sketch and Speak expository intervention with adolescents with LLD to improve comprehension and expression of grade-level material.
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23681505.