Textism use and language ability in children

Textism use (or textese) refers to the way in which individuals write in shorthand on mobile devices in order to save space or time. Thurlow (2003) devised one of the first coding schemes for textisms, and textism use has since been hotly debated by the media (Crystal, 2008). Plester et al. (2008; 2009) and Wood et al. (2011; 2014) have since investigated the relationship that texting has with children's language abilities, and found no evidence of negative effects. Further research has been conducted into the effects of texting on readers of differing abilities (Coe & Oakhill, 2011) and found that it is better readers who tend to use more textisms. Further research is discussed in relation to children with reading difficulties such as specific language impairments (Durkin et al, 2011) and dyslexia (Veater et al, 2011)

Towards a Technology of Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication is the main channel through which we experience inner life of others, including their emotions, feelings, moods, social attitudes, etc. This attracts the interest of the computing community because nonverbal communication is based on cues like facial expressions, vocalizations, gestures, postures, etc. that we can perceive with our senses and can be (and often are) detected, analyzed and synthesized with automatic approaches. In other words, nonverbal communication can be used as a viable interface between computers and some of the most important aspects of human psychology such as emotions and social attitudes. As a result, a new computing domain seems to emerge that we can define “technology of nonverbal communication”. This chapter outlines some of the most salient aspects of such a potentially new domain and outlines some of its most important perspectives for the future