There have been a number of recent advances in the procedures for treating language disorders in children. Many of these advances are attributable to the development of experimentally rigorous conversation-based treatment procedures that include many aspects of normal language acquisition and that lead to rapid acquisition and generalization of linguistic structures. However, a crucial component of language, phonology (speech sound disorders), has not been included in these treatment advances. Because of this, the phonological treatment literature continues to be dominated by imitation based procedures that result in limited acquisition and very low levels of generalization. Yet, phonology is an important part of language treatment because many language disordered children suffer from phonological disorders, and phonological competence is often a prerequisite skill for the acquisition of other kinds of language targets (e.g., morphology, lexical items). Thus, there is a strong theoretical rationale and an applied significance to developing and testing conversation based treatment procedures for phonological disorders that parallel the advances seen in other language domains and that can be incorporated into these highly effective language treatments. The purpose of the proposed project is two-fold. First, the project is designed to compare experimentally the relative efficacy of imitation and conversation based treatment to remediate phonological disorders in children with specific language impairment. In order to complete this purpose, the project includes detailed assessment procedures, multiple baseline measures, extensive generalization probes, and rigorous methods of completing both the imitation based and the conversationally based treatments. The second purpose of the project is to examine the integration of phonology into other language domains during remediation. In order to complete this purpose, the project includes procedures for the simultaneous monitoring of morphological, semantic and syntactic structures during assessment, baseline, treatment, and generalization measures. When completed, the proposed project will provide more efficient treatment procedures for remediating phonological disorders and provide detailed information on the ways that phonology interacts with other language domains.
| Haley, K L; Camarata, S M; Nelson, K E (1994) Social valence in children with specific language impairment during imitation-based and conversation-based language intervention. J Speech Hear Res 37:378-88 |
