College of Education Special Education http://education.illinois.edu/sped/sped/frp/halle

Faculty Research Profiles: James Halle

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Professor

Special Education
284F Education Building
1310 S. 6th St. MC 708
Champaign, IL 61820USA
business217 333-0260
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Research Biography

For more than 20 years I have been involved in research related to communication and language development of children with disabilities. This program of research has focused on examining both social communication of young children with significant intellectual disability, and the ecological factors that facilitate and discourage communicative growth. I have also worked on developing interventions to encourage more effective and efficient communication by these children.

Recent projects include assessing current dictionaries of prelinguistic forms used by children with severe disabilities to communicate and the functions (e.g., request, protest, comment) these forms serve for the children. In addition, I am interested in investigating the effects of listener (un)responsiveness on the dictionary of forms. An especially interesting area of inquiry is communicative repair. For many of the children with whom I work, their signals are ambiguous and listeners often misunderstand their intent. A major focus of investigation is how do these children "repair" their communicative acts when their first effort is misunderstood? We have found that often they engage in challenging behavior as a repair strategy, because such behavior recruits the attention of adults or results in the intended outcome. Our effort is to teach alternative means of repair that serve the same function and do so more efficiently and effectively than their current forms.

Degrees

  • Ph.D., Developmental & Child Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, 1980
  • M.S., Human Development, University of Kansas, Lawrence, 1978
  • M.S.W., Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1973
  • B.B.A., Business, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1970

Key Professional Appointments

  • Professor, Special Education, University of Illinois, 1992--
  • Associate Professor, Special Education, University of Illinois, 1987-1992
  • Assistant Professor, Special Education, University of Illinois, 1985-1987
  • Assistant Professor, Special Education & Communication Disorders, Pennsylvania State University, 1980-1984

Activities & Honors

  • Career Teaching Award, 2006-2007, Graduate Awards Committee, 2006-2007
  • Goldstick Family Scholar of Communication Disorders, Goldstick Family Gift, 2005-2006
  • Distinguished Senior Scholar, College of Education, 2001-2002
  • Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award, College of Education, 2001-2002
  • Associate Editor, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1996-1998
  • Award for Research, Teaching, and Advising, Council on Graduate Students in Education, 1994
  • Editor, Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 1993-1995
  • Distinguished College Scholar, College of Education, 1988

Grants

  • Co-Principal Investigator, Teaching Teachers to Teach Social Interaction Skills to Young Children With Autism, Campus Research Board, 2006
  • Co-Principal Investigator, Preparing Leaders in Access by Design (PLAD), U.S. Department of Education, 2006
  • Principal Investigator, A Multi-Component Self-Regulated Strategy Approach for Expository Reading Comprehension and Writing for Students with and without Disabilities: Examination of Effects in Reading and Content Classrooms, U.S. Department of Education (Pennsylvania State University), 2006
  • Principal Investigator, Enhancing Autism Services in C-U: A Family Resilience Initiative Proposal, Department of Human and Community Development, 2005
  • Principal Investigator, The Effects of Developing Rapport on Compliant and Problem Behavior of Young Children with Autism and Developmental Disorders, Campus Research Board, 2005

Selected Publications

  • Meadan, H., Halle, J. W., Watkins, R. V., & Chadsey, J. G. (2006). Examining communication repairs of two young children with autism spectrum disorder: The influence of the environment. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 15, 57-71.
  • Halle, J. W., Ostrosky, M. M., & Hemmeter, M. L. (2006). Functional communication training. In R. J. McCauley & M. E. Fey (Eds.), Treatment of language disorders in children: Conventional and controversial treatments (pp. 509-545). Baltimore: Brookes Publishing.
  • Dymond, S., Renzaglia, A., Halle, J., Chadsey, J., & Bentz, J. (in press). An Evaluation of Videoconferencing as a Supportive Technology for Practicum Supervision. Teacher Education and Special Education.
  • Halle, J. & Meadan, H. (in press). A Protocol for Assessing Early Communication of Young Children with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education.
  • Meadan, H., Halle, J. W., Ostrosky, M. M., & DeStefano, L. (in press). Communicative behavior in the natural environment: Case studies of two young children with autism. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 23 (1).

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