The Effectiveness of Using Communication-Centered Intervention to Facilitate Phonological Learning in Young Children

Abstract

Treatment of preschool children with moderate to severe speech sound disorders is typically a long-term endeavor with many sounds and sound patterns requiring intervention. The purpose of this study was to determine if a communication-centered intervention would be effective in improving speech production with this population. The intervention consisted of the combined application of focused stimulation of key words during joint storybook reading and interactive practice of key words using communicative feedback. Participants displayed unique response patterns to the intervention. Two of the three participants demonstrated improvement in the use of the target speech pattern during intervention sessions, with one of the participants demonstrating generalization of the target pattern to conversational speech. Although the third participant did not demonstrate improvement during the intervention period, follow-up testing revealed some systemwide changes in his phonological system. This study provides preliminary support that communication-centered approaches are effective in facilitating phonological change.

Evidence-based intervention for preschool children with primary speech and language impairments: Child Talk – an exploratory mixed-methods study

“…Across the nine categories, the largest group of papers was in the 'speech' theme [32 papers 171 138,154 and finally 'adult understanding' with one paper. 134 In total, 52 of the studies recruited child participants who had a language impairment.…”

“…It was common for studies to address more than one of the typology themes (Table 45), for example 'speech' is represented within 33 of the retained studies 171 and five of these studies were also included in the 'expressive language' theme, 139,154,157,168,169 one in the 'self-monitoring' theme, 154 17 in the 'generalisation' theme, [138][139][140][144][145][146][147][149][150][151][152]154,[157][158][159]164,167 one in the 'adult understanding' theme 134 and one in the 'adult-child interaction' theme.…”

“…The most common research design was that of a case series [18 of the studies (in 17 papers [139][140][141][142][143][144][145][148][149][150][152][153][154]158,[165][166][167] ) employed a case series design]. These case series studies used a combination of multiple baselines, staggered starts and a crossover design.…”

“…140,[144][145][146][147][148][149][150][151][152][153][154][155][156][157][158][159][161][162][163][164][165][166][167]169 For 25 studies, change in the sound system was the primary focus; for the remaining study, 139 change in the sound system was an additional focus. Specifically, the primary focus was change in word-finding skills and measurement of change in the speech sound system was carried out as a by-product of the intervention received.…”

“…146,148,[151][152][153][154][155][156][157][158][159][161][162][163][164]168,[171][172][173][174][175] One was carried out in the home context, 143 one was split between the clinic and preschool 169 and another four were carried out purely in a preschool context. 141,154,160,171 The remaining four studies did not state where the intervention was undertaken. 139,159,161,164 …”