Emerging model of communication and language intervention

Abstract

Research on methods to enhance and remediate the communication and language development of children with mental retardation and developmental disabilities has been ongoing since the early 1960s. Scores of studies have been conducted over this time period, the vast majority aimed at testing various procedures or intervention “packages” with relatively small numbers of children for very limited periods of time. This “technology building” period is gradually receding and the framework of a developmental model of early communication and language intervention is emerging. This model supports the use of different intervention approaches at different points in a child's development. The purpose of this paper is to describe the basic framework of this emerging model, to provide an overview of the research findings that support it, and to identify high priority areas for further investigation. MRDD Research Reviews 1997;3:358–362. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

A Spoken-Language Intervention for School-Aged Boys With Fragile X Syndrome

“…Theoretically, the temporal proximity and semantic overlap between the recast and the child’s original utterance allows the child to implicitly notice the differences between the recast and his own utterance (Warren & Yoder, 1997). If the child notices this difference repeatedly and if he/she is developmentally ready to learn the new linguistic form, the child should reorganize his/her own language system to acquire the new vocabulary word or grammatical structure (Camarata, 1995).…”

Distance Video-Teleconferencing in Early Intervention

“…Optimal levels of verbal language input from responsive parents can, over time, contribute to enhanced child language learning (Warren & Yoder, 1997). All of the strategies targeted in the present study were selected based on their utility for providing salient and easily processed verbal language information to children.…”

A Randomized Trial of Longitudinal Effects of Low-Intensity Responsivity Education/Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching

“…There is a substantial body of evidence supporting its effectiveness, especially for lexical and early grammatical intervention targets (Hancock & Kaiser, 2006;Kaiser, Yoder, & Keetz, 1992). Finally, conceptually and procedurally it complements PMT (Warren & Yoder, 1997), differing only in a few procedures that reflect its central focus on language goals as opposed to nonverbal communicative acts.…”