The importance of parent–teacher communication has been widely recognized; however, there is only limited research on teaching effective listening skills to education professionals. In this study, a pretest–posttest control group design was used to examine the effect of instruction on the active listening skills of preservice education professionals. Instruction resulted in statistically significant improvement for targeted active listening skills. As a measure of social validity, parents of preschool and school-age children viewed pre- and postinstruction videotapes of preservice education professionals in role-play conversations. The parents judged the postinstruction performances of the preservice education professionals to be better examples of effective communication than the preinstruction performances of the preservice education professionals.

This paper presents the findings of a review of 13 studies of attitudes toward individuals who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The following factors that influenced attitudes were found: characteristics of typically developing individuals, characteristics of the person using AAC, and characteristics of AAC systems' output. This research base indicates that females reported more positive attitudes than males, and that individuals with previous experience with people with disabilities reported more positive attitudes than did individuals who had no previous experience with people with disabilities. The AAC system and other factors studied did not appear to be influential as single factors; however, data from the studies reviewed provide support for the hypothesis that attitudes are formed by the interaction of many different factors. There has been limited research in techniques to change attitudes toward individuals who use AAC. A recommendation from this review is that future research should focus on strategies to modify both attitudes and behavior in order to reduce barriers to social interaction.

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Brief telephone-administered interventions that integrate motivational interviewing with skills-building show potential to reduce risky sexual behaviors in HIV-infected rural persons. Additional and large-scale evaluations of this intervention approach appear warranted.