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Parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder are responsible for deciding which interventions to implement with their child. There is limited research examining parental decision-making with regards to intervention approaches. A constructivist grounded theory methodology was implemented in this study. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 14 participants from 12 family units. Data collection and analysis occurred concurrently, allowing a grounded theory to be constructed. Parental decision-making was influenced by many factors, arranged into seven core categories (values, experience, information, motivation, understanding, needs and logistics). Decision-making evolved over time, as parents transformed from 'parent' to 'expert'. The results of this study provide an insight into parental decision-making, which has implications for the support provided to parents by health professionals.

This research investigated whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) and non-specific language impairment (NLI) could be differentiated by their oral narrative characteristics. Oral narrative samples were collected from 69 children and comparisons were made among four groups of participants. The two language impairment groups (SLI and NLI), aged 4;11-6;03, were matched for age and their linguistics skills. Their oral narratives were compared between these diagnostic groups and with age-matched and language-matched control groups. Measures of narrative structure, cohesion, and information did not significantly differentiate the SLI and NLI groups, suggesting that the influence of their similar linguistic skills on oral narrative measures was stronger than the influence of their differing non-verbal cognition. The SLI group produced significantly more complex and informative oral narratives than the language-matched group, while the NLI group differed from the language-matched group on fewer measures. Interactions among linguistic, cognitive, maturational, and task factors are discussed.

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