Abstract
The educational inclusion of children with communication disorders together with typically developing (TD) peers is a national standard. However, we have little mechanistic understanding of how interactions with peers and teachers contribute to the language development of these children. To build that understanding, we combine objective measurement of the quantity and quality of child and teacher speech with radio frequency identification of their physical movement and orientation. Longitudinal observations of two different sets of classrooms are analyzed. One set of classrooms contains children who require hearing aids and cochlear implants. Another set of classrooms contains children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Computational modeling of pair-wise movement/orientation is used to derive periods of social contact when speech may occur. Results suggest that children with ASD are isolated from peers but approach teachers relatively quickly. Overall, talk with peers in social contact (and speech heard from teachers) promotes children's own talk which, in turn, is associated with assessed language abilities.
