These evaluation results suggest that a smoking cessation programme, with at least short term efficacy, can be successfully delivered via the internet.

Our findings support the notion that those with co-morbid FXS and autism represent a distinct subtype of FXS, with more impairment in receptive language and theory of mind even when controlling for their lower non-verbal IQ relative to those with only FXS. The greater cognitive impairments observed in those with co-morbid FXS and autism continues into adolescence and young adulthood; and the autism seen in those with FXS appears to be the same as idiopathic autism.

Signaling noncomprehension of the spoken messages of others was examined for youth with fragile X or Down syndrome in comparison with each other and nonverbal MA-matched typically developing children. A direction-following task was used in which some of the directions were inadequate. Both syndrome groups signaled noncomprehension less often than did the typically developing children. The ability to signal noncomprehension appropriately was related to a measure of receptive vocabulary and syntax. Preliminary analyses indicated that males with fragile Requests for reprints should be sent to Leonard Abbeduto, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1500 Highland Ave., Madison, WI 53705. Abbeduto@waisman.wisc.edu. HHS Public AccessAuthor manuscript Am J Ment Retard. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 September 25. Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript Author Manuscript X syndrome signaled noncomprehension less often than did their female peers, even after controlling for differences in nonverbal MA.For a discourse to be successful, the participants must fulfill the obligations associated with their roles as speaker and listener (Clark, 1996). In the role of listener, a participant must use all available sources of information to construct the speaker's intended meaning. Moreover, the listener must signal when comprehension is not possible so that the speaker can provide clarification. If the listener fails to signal noncomprehension, he or she will find it increasingly difficult to construct an accurate representation of the talk and to make meaningful contributions (Clark & Schaefer, 1989). Individuals with intellectual disabilities often fail to signal noncomprehension (Abbeduto, Davies, Solesby, & Furman, 1991;Abbeduto, Short-Meyerson, Benson, & Dolish, 1997;Abbeduto, Short-Meyerson, Benson, Dolish, & Weissman, 1998;Ezell & Goldstein, 1991;Fujiki & Brinton, 1993). There is, however, considerable within-group variability in most domains of language use, including noncomprehension signaling (Abbeduto & Rosenberg, 1980;Bedrosian & Prutting, 1978). The causes and correlates of such variability are poorly understood (Abbeduto & Hesketh, 1997). In this study, we examined the possibility that the nature and extent of problems in noncomprehension signaling vary with etiology by focusing on Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome, the two most common genetic causes of intellectual disabilities (Dykens, Hodapp, & Finucane, 2000). We also examined the sources of between-and withinsyndrome differences in non-comprehension signaling. Such data can provide the foundation for language interventions designed to meet the unique needs of the individual with intellectual disabilities (Dykens et al., 2000;Hodapp & Fidler, 1999;Murphy & Abbeduto, 2005).Signaling noncomprehension requires that the listener continuously monitor his or her understanding and formulate linguistic responses that make clear to the speaker what aspects of the utterance are problematic and, thereby, the nature of the clar...

We consider possible causes of these maternal differences, the implications for clinical practice, needs for future research, and the importance of understanding child and contextual factors as well as the dynamics leading to these differences.

Objective There is a great need for valid outcome measures of functional improvement for impending clinical trials of targeted interventions for Fragile X syndrome (FXS). Families often report conversational language improvement during clinical treatment, but no validated measures exist to quantify this outcome. This small-scale study sought to determine the feasibility, reproducibility, and clinical validity of highly structured expressive language sampling as an outcome measure reflecting language ability. Methods Narrative and conversation tasks were administered to 36 verbal participants (25 males, 11 females) with FXS (age 5–36, mean 18±7). Alternate versions were used with randomized task order, at 2–3 week (mean 19.6±6.4 days) intervals. Audio recordings of sessions were transcribed and analyzed. Dependent measures reflected talkativeness (total number of utterances), utterance planning (proportion of communication (C) units with mazes), articulation (proportion of unintelligible/partly unintelligible C-units), vocabulary (number of different word roots) and syntactic ability (mean length of utterance (MLU) in words). Reproducibility of measures was evaluated with intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC). Results All participants could complete the tasks. Coded data were highly reproducible with Pearson correlations p<0.01 for all measures, and ICC values of 0.911–0.966 (conversation) and 0.728–0.940 (narration). Some measures including MLU and different word roots were correlated with expressive language subscale scores from the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale (VABS). Conclusions These expressive language sampling tasks appear to be feasible, reproducible, and clinically valid and should be further validated in a larger cohort, as a promising means of assessing functional expressive language outcomes during clinical trials in FXS.