INTERVENTION STRATEGIES

Intervention Strategies To Language Development

Intervention Strategies To Language Development

Introduction

We know that children with delayed or disordered language are at increased risk for social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Based on the assessment results of over 200 preschoolers attending Head Start programs, Kaiser and colleagues found that compared to their peers without behavior problems and average social skills, preschoolers with behavior problems had lower receptive and expressive language scores, and below-average social skills. Research also suggests that preschool children with delays in communication, particularly those with significant receptive deficits, are less likely to be socially accepted among their peers and have reciprocal friendships. Although much more research is needed to better understand the relationship between children's language acquisition and social emotional development, early language intervention programs that utilize the most effective intervention approaches will likely impact children's later communication and social performance.

Fortunately, remarkable achievements have been reported in the early detection of language delays and disorders, and in our knowledge of contexts/settings, programs, and approaches that enhance optimal language development. From this large body of literature, critical components of comprehensive early language intervention programs have emerged. Recommended language teaching strategies include:

1) prelinguistic milieu teaching (PMT)

2) Milieu teaching, which consists of incidental teaching10 and mand-model procedures

3) Responsive interaction approaches, including growth recasts,

4) Direct teaching of specific language targets using adult directed strategies. A brief definition and overview of each of these strategies is provided below. The above references provide more detailed descriptions for interested readers.

When planning language intervention programs, providing ideal situations and contexts for language learning that supports the use of various effective approaches is of utmost importance. For example, enabling contexts that set the stage for and support language learning within caregiver-child interactions, include:

a) Creating communication opportunities (eg, keeping toys out of reach, violating expected routines) and face-to-face positioning

b) Following the child's lead by providing activities or toys that interest the child

c) Building and establishing social routines (eg, rituals such as peek-a-boo or pat-a-cake). Similarly, routines based interventions provide an ideal scaffold and context for teaching. That is, predictable and familiar routine events are used to facilitate child responses, and offer families and caregivers many teaching and learning opportunities throughout the day. Within enabling contexts and routines based instruction, one can use any of the milieu teaching, responsive interaction, direct instruction or direct language teaching approaches described below to promote functional language learning in natural environments.

Once the social interaction environment is arranged, the adult can then provide specific teaching techniques to prompt (eg, time delay and verbal prompts), model (vocal or gestural models of desired communicative responses) and reinforce (e.g., acknowledge the child's intent/meaning by naming things the child refers to) clear, intentional communication attempts within child-centered play routines. These strategies are called 'prelinguistic milieu teaching techniques', and are used to help children who are not yet speaking to transition from preintentional to intentional communication, and from presymbolic to symbolic communication.

Milieu teaching approaches consist of several specific teaching techniques embedded ...