522 W average power, spectrally beam-combined fiber laser with near-diffraction-limited beam quality.

We report a three-channel, spectrally beam-combined (SBC), 1 mum fiber laser that produces 522 W of average power with near-diffraction-limited (M2 ~ 1.2) beam quality. The laser features a SBC power combining efficiency of 93%, versatile master-oscillator, power-amplifier fiber channels with up to 260 W of narrow-band, polarized, and near-diffraction-limited output that is tunable over nearly the entire 1 micro m Yb(3+) gain bandwidth, and excellent prospects for significant power scaling. To our knowledge, these results represent the highest beam quality and average power achieved to date for a beam-combined fiber laser system.

Use of cloze and contrast word procedures in repeated storybook reading: targeting multiple domains.

UNLABELLED: The purposes of this study were: (1) to implement an intervention approach for children with language and phonological impairments, targeting multiple linguistic domains within a unitary activity, and (2) to investigate whether any observed changes in selected outcome measures were associated with particular scaffolding procedures. The intervention approach employed a variety of scaffolding procedures (cloze procedures; cloze procedures with expansions; contrast words) within an interactive repeated storybook reading activity. It was delivered across 12 sessions to three kindergarten children with language and phonological impairments. Pre-treatment and post-treatment probes, together with treatment data, provided indices of the semantic and phonological complexity of the participants' utterances. Changes in complexity levels were observed in all participants. Associations between increases in outcome measures and use of particular scaffolding techniques were identified. LEARNING OUTCOMES: (1) The reader will learn a rationale for use of cloze procedures, cloze procedures with expansions, and contrast words during repeated storybook reading as an intervention for some children with both language and phonological disorders. (2) The reader will learn how to implement cloze procedures, cloze procedures with expansions, and contrast words during repeated storybook reading. (3) The reader will learn how various outcome measures (e.g., level of semantic complexity) may be used to track change in performance over time.

Training caregivers to facilitate communicative participation of preschool children with language impairment during storybook reading.

UNLABELLED: This study reports the effects of training six adult caregivers to use an interactive reading routine, termed Complete Reading Cycle (CRC), during storybook reading with their preschool children, aged 3;2 to 3;5, who exhibited language impairment. Caregivers were taught to be more responsive to their children's communicative attempts during reading and to more actively engage the children in reading the story. Measures of child change included communicative participation and lexical diversity of utterances during adult-child shared reading. Children significantly increased the frequency of communicative turns, total number of words, and number of different words produced during shared storybook reading as a result of caregiver training. Five of the six children had higher mean frequencies for story initiations during training. However, increases in initiations were not statistically significant, with considerable variability across children for this measure. LEARNING OUTCOMES: (1) As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to discuss positive communicative changes in children with language impairment during adult-child storybook reading. (2) As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to use the storybook reading procedures with parents of preschool children exhibiting language impairment.

Efficacy of Expansions and Cloze Procedures in the Development of Interpretations by Preschool Children Exhibiting Delayed Language Development.

Recent intervention studies have demonstrated that adult-provided expansions of child utterances during storybook reading can result in preschool children's development of two-word utterances that describe characters and their actions as well as grammatical morphemes that are targeted for development via expansions. The present study used an alternating-treatments experimental design to compare the effects of two styles of storybook reading on the production of interpretations by two preschool children experiencing delayed language development. One reading style used a combination of expansions and cloze procedures; the other provided questions followed by modeling of appropriate answers. The children produced more answers to questions regarding the storybook, more interpretations, and syntactically more complex utterances in the condition using expansions and cloze procedures. Results are discussed with respect to the use of these techniques in naturalistic intervention and the relationship between their use and the discourse context of the intervention sessions.