Enhancing the phonological awareness and language skills of socially disadvantaged preschoolers: An interdisciplinary programme

Abstract

The research reported investigated the efficacy of intervention, developed by a speech-language therapist and implemented by a teacher, for the language and phonological awareness (PA) abilities of pre-school, socially disadvantaged children. One study established that children from low socio-economic (SES) backgrounds had poorer skills on both measures compared to children of average SES. Half of the low SES group received language and PA intervention programmes and their progress was compared to untreated SES matched controls. Both programmes were highly effective with post-intervention performance not only exceeding that of SES controls but also equalling the performance of controls of average SES.

SLP-educator classroom collaboration: A review to inform reason-based practice

“…It was suggested that the lack of a change on the expressive measure could have been related to the low dose of intervention (4 weeks). In another study of preschool children (n ¼ 97) attending school in a low income area, McIntosh et al (2007) reported standardized test score gains at 3-month follow up but not immediately post intervention compared to a business-as-usual classroom for those in an experimental classroom receiving a SLP-designed and teacher implemented 10-week classroom-based language intervention focused on story retelling, categorization, and following directions. One additional study by Khan and Paddick (2014) provided a description of a similar program adapted for First Nations children but was not included in the review due to the lack of empirical data reported.…”

“…Four papers (see Table 1 for summary) were identified that focused specifically on phonological awareness classroom-based intervention (without incorporating other literacy-related skills). In addition to vocabulary for Hadley et al (2000) and narrative/expressive language for McIntosh et al (2007), these studies also targeted phonological awareness and so were included in this group. Neither of the other studies (Koutsoftas et al, 2009;van Kleek et al, 1998) incorporated randomization, demonstrated baseline equivalence, or considered attrition (although it did not appear that there was data loss due to attrition).…”

“…Table 1 summarizes the corroborating evidence from the remaining three studies. Prior to their language intervention and with the same participants, teachers in the McIntosh et al (2007) study implemented a 10-week phonological awareness intervention designed by the SLP. Significant gains favouring the experimental group on a standardized measure of phonological awareness were observed at post intervention.…”

Investigating the Role of Language in Children's Early Educational Outcomes

“…Furthermore, socio-economic adversity is known to be negatively associated with children's language and communication development in the first five years of life (Locke et al, 2002;McIntosh et al, 2007). There are then, some complex associations between social disadvantage, children's language and communication development in the early years and later educational attainment.…”

A systematic review of environmental interventions to improve child language outcomes for children with or at risk of primary language impairment

“…However, in both instances, the communication environment is implicated. For example, one study talks about strategies such as turn taking and the other talks about the activities as "integral to the daily teaching plan" (McIntosh et al 2007). Being classroom-based, these interventions target children who are approximately five years of age -at the top end of the age range of the review.…”