I knew it was going to be good when I realised that the First Words team was headed by Project Director Amy Wetherby PhD CCC-SLP of Florida State University, famous, in speech pathology circles particularly, for her work in social and communicative profiles of children with autism / PDD and in the early identification of communication disorders in infants and toddlers. 

The information on the First Words site reflects the two main purposes of the study: to evaluate an interdisciplinary and interagency collaborative early referral and evaluation process, and to provide a family-guided menu of service options for children in the 6 to 24 months age range. 

I was keen to ask why part of the budget for this important project had been allocated to developing a web presence. "We have established the website to disseminate information about the project, our findings, and our training materials," Wetherby responded.  "We hope that the website will be a resource for healthcare and childcare service providers and families to improve early identification of children with communication problems". And the site itself? Well, it is great, though still very much in its own infancy. A bit like Sydney, really: full of good things to do, and bound to be very special when it is finished. 

Word Finding Web Site
I put the same question to Dr Diane German, a professor in the Special Education Department at National-Louis University, Chicago, who has posted a site devoted to her research passion of word finding.

She too has plenty of confidence in the Internet as an educational tool. "The site was developed to provide introductory information to professionals, parents and learners concerned about word finding difficulties. It directs visitors to the work of many authors who have contributed to the area of child word finding". The site includes the definition, characteristics and assessment of, and intervention for, word retrieval problems, and an eclectic links page.

German, the author of the Test of Word Finding (TWF-2) among other publications detailed on the site, believes that teachers and language clinicians will find the assessment and the intervention sections invaluable, noting especially the help page where professionals can seek advice relating to particular children.

SRCLD
The Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders  (SRCLD) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, home of the SALT and the Phonology Project, is one of those bits of the web that keeps drawing you back, whether to dream about participating in a symposium one day, or to relive the experience of having done so.

The SRCLD was initiated in 1980 to provide a forum for the presentation of recent research and the discussion of current issues among established scholars and students in child language disorders. It is organized by a committee of doctoral students from several departments at the University of Wisconsin.

SRCLD's director, Jon F. Miller PhD a Professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders, told me he is keen to encourage more people to attend the symposium, seeing it as "a research conference of note that allows contact with the major researchers in child language disorders. We are small, about 200 attendees each year.  We would welcome more participation from you all in years to come". Participants hear detailed presentations on significant advances, and can visit more than 60 poster presentations of contributed research papers over a two and a half day period. 

  COPYRIGHT © Caroline Bowen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED  CONTACT | email | Privacy