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The assessment of language in disabled people raises many problems related to the same difficulty that they have, as well as having ef fective criteria and tests for evaluation. Age is another added difficulty, since many speech and language interventions extend beyond adolescence into adulthood.

We report a case of and adult with Down's syndrome whose language has been evaluated on the basis of observation, and also the effectiveness of a standardized test has been tested to see if it was useful for developing the intervention plan. Experience and results support the use of structured testing and scales to detect the preferred areas of intervention, as well as to reflect progress.

Auditory and visual deterioration are the first signs of ageing, but socially and culturally are not treated in the same way. The late diagnosis, neurological difficulties, the lack of support in the social-emotional environment, can make it difficult to adapt well to hearing aids. The importance of having a good follow-up and rehabilitation service after applying hearing aids is presented. This service can improve substantially the use of the hearing aid in the elderly and helps in family adjustment to the difficulties in coexisting, and also provides strategies for communication that can prevent the isolation in the hearing impaired elderly. In the development of this work we have been able to identify different profiles that present similar problems, and we have classified them into three types: Presbycusis, late adaptation and intelligibility degeneration. It should be mentioned that, although presbycusis is the intrinsic problem in aging impaired hearing, is it not the only one or the most prevalent, and for this reason three other different profiles are described.

The case is presented of an eight-year-old girl of North African origin, with a slight mental disability and serious language problems, originating in her native language and aggravated by her disability. The development of her oral language skills was below average for her age. In order to evaluate her language skills, the Revised Screening version of the Objective Criteria Language Battery (BLOC-SR) and the complete version of (BLOC-C) were used. The results showed difficulties in all the language components, but they were greater at the morphological and syntactic levels. The intervention consisted of fifteen sessions which worked on different activities related to the four language areas (morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics). The main aim was to encourage the girl's communication, verbal comprehension and expression in Spanish, in order to improve her linguistic development.

The present study is an experimental pilot study conducted with 10 French monolingual children, between 19 and 25 months of age. It explores the possibilities of an elicitation method in the transition to word combinations.

This work is based on conversational sequences of interaction in a natural context, and the procedure can be used as part of the guidance to parents, as well as part of the speech therapy with children with language difficulties during their early development, regardless of their chronological age.

The experimental procedure is to elicit utterances that extend the information of the first contribution of the child in a conversation.

The results show differences between groups for the experimental group, while increasing the production of multi-word utterances which are spontaneous and not uttered before in the immediate conversation.

The main contribution of this work to the speech therapy is the procedure of construction of experimental material for the elicitation of multi-word utterances from the combination of basic semantic functions, working from the productive lexicon of each child from the sample.

It raises the possibility of extending the study to larger samples and other languages.

Our study looks at two of the main problems that concern parents, teachers, and students, which are poor school performance and the high rate of school failure (Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA report 2003).

We believe that a good method to develop pupil skills should be provided in order to improve reading comprehension and school performance. The speech therapist is the specialist who must work on reading comprehension as a basis for academic performance. Our study aims to verify: i) If study skills affect reading comprehension. ii) If a methodology based on this systematic teaching of the organization of study may have implications for improving reading comprehension for pupils with high or low ability.

We focus on two classes of the 6th year, in a private school in the central area of Madrid province. We studied 47 pupils, 21 boys and 26 girls. We used a pre-test-treatment-post-test methodology during one school year. In each of these phases we performed: i) Protest: to identify the reading comprehension level from which we start. An individual test (ECL 2) was applied. ii) Treatment: the methods used varied throughout the academic year, depending on the mediation used: a) Control Group: they were given a summary booklet with several study techniques. b) Experimental Group: they received the booklet and a speech therapist worked with them in the classroom using study skills following the Robinson method. By processing and analysing the data statistically, we can conclude that the class led by the speech therapist improved reading comprehension for pupils with high and low aptitudes.

It is suggested that this type of research should be considered, in which the speech therapist comes into play as a technical specialist in reading comprehension strategies towards improved pupil performance.

The case is presented of a ten-year-old boy with serious language difficulties due to neglect. The development of his language skills was below average for his age. In order to evaluate his language skills, the Revised Screening version of the Objective Criteria Language Battery (BLOC-SR) and the complete version (BLOC-C) were used. The results showed that all the linguistic components were affected, with the greatest difficulties in the areas of morphology and pragmatics. A work programme consisting of twenty sessions with the boy was designed. The objectives of the intervention were as follows: to improve his expression and comprehension through linguistic stimulation, and to help in his socio-emotional development. All four language levels (morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics) were worked on during the sessions through different activities in collaboration with the school tutor.

Stuttering is a speech and communication disorder of great concern to parents because it may have significant long-term emotional and social consequences in the child's development. Numerous investigations indicate that early intervention increases the possibility of a child developing normal fluency. However, there are still misconceptions about waiting to begin an intervention at 4 years old, although the literature and clinical practice indicate that interventions are necessary when the problem arises (even if this appears at 2.5 years old).

Current evidence suggests that intervention is crucial in early stuttering as it has greater success in controlling stuttering than in later ages.

This case report aims to provide an example for assessing and treating early stuttering in a 3.5 year old child. The assessment consists of an evaluation of the child's fluency and identifies risk signs in the family environment. Depending on the diagnosis, an early stuttering intervention program is established with child and parents, in order to reduce risk factors in the environment so that the problem may be worked on and controlled

Schizophrenia is a disorder that affects 1 % of world population, regardless of race, education level or social class. It manifests itself in adolescence, thus early detection would help to minimise the effects that occur in students who suffer from it. The level of dropping out of classes is estimated to be very high, although there are no conclusive data as it takes years to diagnose, with drop outs being confused with failure at school. In this article, the patterns and characteristics of students with schizophrenic disorder are presented in order to obtain an early and effective diagnosis. Emphasis is placed on aspects of language that can serve as identifiers of the disorder.

Music and language have shared fields, involving their vocal, hearing, cognitive instruments, as well as their similar stages of development. In early childhood education this complementarity could lead to significant globalizing experiences for the pupils. The research carried out in kindergarten classroom show that educational content shared by language and music that can be developed in joint and significant activities for both areas in these early ages.

A 45 year-old woman, right handed, with no medical history of interest, and a good level of education was seen in the clinic due to subjective complaints of memory and language problems. She was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) three years ago and had received speech therapy for a year. The psychopathological examination was normal, with categorical verbal fluency impairment, although with good comprehension and speaking ability, normal praxis and normal performance in the cognitive screening test. The subjective complains of memory were assessed by test of verbal memory. Furthermore, behaviour changes, particularly irritability, were reported by family. These problems did not affect her activities of daily living.

The present case shows the difficulties in classifying cases into different subtypes of PPA and the problems in making a possible prognosis.