Ten Principles of Grammar Facilitation for Children With Specific Language Impairments

Abstract

Although they often have significant difficulties in other areas, most children with specific language impairment (SLI) have special difficulties with the understanding and use of grammar. Therefore, most of these children will require an intervention program that targets comprehension or production of grammatical form. Language interventionists are faced with the difficult task of developing comprehensive intervention programs that address the children's grammatical deficits while remaining sensitive to their other existing and predictable social, behavioral, and academic problems. The purpose of this article is to present and justify 10 principles that we regard as essential for planning adequate interventions for children with language-learning problems. These principles are relevant for all children with problems in the use of grammar, but they are especially appropriate for 3- to 8-year-old children with SLI. Although all of our examples are from English, the principles we have chosen are sufficiently broad to cut across many linguistic and cultural boundaries.

Improving Clinical Practices for Children With Language and Learning Disorders

“…Despite the gaps in the research literature, articles and textbooks on language disorders indicate a general consensus on the basic principles and procedures of language therapy (Ellis- Weismer, 1990Weismer, -1991Fey, Long, & Finestack, 2003;Lahey, 1988;Paul & Norbury, 2011;Nelson, 2010;Owens, 2014;Reed, 2012). Most clinicians are familiar with the process of evidence-based practice.…”

Parent Telegraphic Speech Use and Spoken Language in Preschoolers With ASD

“…Proponents of telegraphic speech argue that it is beneficial because it simplifies language processing, facilitates verbal imitation, and focuses children's attention on the relationship between semantic elements (e.g., agent-action; van Kleeck et al, 2010;Wolfe & Heilmann, 2010). Others argue that telegraphic speech is detrimental because morphosyntactic features of language provide useful information about the structure of language and the meaning of words, and omitting these features may put children at a disadvantage (Bedore & Leonard, 1995;Bredin-Oja & Fey, 2014;Fey, 2008;Fey, Long, & Finestack, 2003;van Kleeck et al, 2010). Our study informs this debate by investigating telegraphic speech use by parents of preschoolers with ASD and the association with their children's spoken language development.…”

Facilitating Pathways

“…Other procedures that are widely used to facili tate language development in children are sentence recasting (a child's utterance is immediately re peated by the adult with some modifications, often correcting errors in the child's utterance); elicited imitation (presentation of a nonverbal stimuli along with a request for a specific verbal response from the child); and modeling (presentation of a set of training stimuli, and asking the child to respond in the same manner; Frey and Proctor-Williams 2000).…”