The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms by Alfie Kohn

"Homework and Attainment in Primary Schools," Steve Farrow, Peter Tymms, Brian Henderson, British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jun., 1999), pp. 323-341

This paper analyzed data on the effects of homework on achievement in English, science and math for primary school students.  The highest test scores were achieved by those pupils who reported doing homework only 'once a month' in each of the core subjects. Students who reported doing homework more frequently than once a month had  lower achievement scores. The authors concluded that teachers should not make assumptions about the value of homework.  
For a more complete review of this issue see: The Case Against Homework by Alfie Kohn

Sensory Processing Disorders

Stages of Development

Stages of Typical Language Development

Stages of Language in Delayed Development

Strategies to Improve Language at Each Stage

Semantic-Pragmatic Language Disorder
In 1983, Rapin and Allen put forward the term semantic pragmatic disorder to describe the communicative behavior of children who presented traits such as pathological talkativeness, deficient access to vocabulary and discourse comprehension, atypical choice of terms and inappropriate conversational skills.  Today this definition has been refined by therapists to refer to communication disorders that involve abnormal comprehension of the meaning of communication cues related to words, grammar, syntax, prosody, eye gaze, body language and gestures.  While children on the autistic spectrum do exhibit semantic-pragmatic disordered language, this language disorder is also seen in isolation and in other types of disorders. For ideas for ways to improve semantic and pragmatic language skills click HERE.

Stages in the Development of Drawing