This is the second set of papers from the 10th Symposium of the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association, held in Lafayette, Louisiana in 2004. The first collection covered the phonetics part of the title of the organization (and, indeed, of the title of the journal); whereas this double issue contains those papers dealing with the linguistics aspect. The fact that the proceedings require two double issues is testament to the breadth and depth of the work presented at ICPLA meetings.
This collection of papers is divided into several themes within clinical linguistics. The first six papers all address concerns within clinical phonology, from several papers utilizing the dominant current theoretical paradigm of optimality theory (Gierut, Dinnsen and Farris, Chin), through to work on productive and receptive intonation in Williams syndrome (Catteral et al). Also covered is work on cross‐linguistic comparisons in Topbaş's paper, and on normal acquisition in Storkel. Phonology has always been a major part of the journal's coverage, so it is not surprising that it constitutes the largest section of papers in this proceedings issue.
Next we have several articles that deal with linguistic and language intervention issues. Hesketh examines relative clause usage in children with language impairment, while Stojanovik and colleagues return to the topic of Williams syndrome to investigate syntactic abilities in this client group. Oetting and Cleveland look at the usefulness of a particular language assessment task in non‐standard English speakers in the south of the United States, whereas Chen and Whittington turn their attention to the individual client and how intervention can be tailored to the client's personal experience. Finally, in the language group of articles, is Reed and Brammall's study of communication skills in adolescents.
The papers by Rattenbury et al and by Hagstrom and White both deal with conversational interaction. Rattenbury and her colleagues' article is the third in this collection to deal with Williams syndrome: in this instance looking at conversational abilities. Hagstrom and White examine conversation exchanges between adults and children in specific task situations. Damico and colleagues' paper bridges the area of interaction and aphasia; in this case with an examination of how intelligibility is negotiated in a dyad between an aphasic client and the clinician.
There are two other papers in the area of aphasia. The first, by Powell, is a reliability study of the coding of discourse samples in the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination 3, and as such is linked back to the previous papers on discourse and interaction. The final paper in the aphasia section is by Buckingham, and presents a fascinating historical account of the debate as to who was the first scientist to describe the priority of the left hemisphere of the brain over the right in the processing and production of language.
The final group of papers are the two on different aspects of reading. Mohammed and colleagues describe a test of adult speechreading, and discuss differential results between adults with hearing impairments, adults with dyslexia and adults with no hearing or literacy impairments. Nelson and Damico look at qualitative research in literacy, and present a case study to demonstrate the usefulness of this approach.
The papers in this second proceedings issue illustrate clearly how the field of clinical linguistics is currently producing exciting and innovative work in a wide range of topics. We look forward with anticipation to the proceedings of the 11th ICPLA meeting in Dubrovnik.