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 Included:

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 .