Improving storytelling and vocabulary in secondary school students with language disorder: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Background Although language and communication difficulties are common in secondary school students, there has been limited research into the efficacy of interventions for adolescents with language and communication difficulties. Aims To investigate the efficacy of teaching assistant (TA)‐delivered narrative and vocabulary interventions to mainstream secondary school‐aged students with language disorder. Methods & Procedures A randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a language and communication intervention was used to evaluate the efficacy of vocabulary and narrative interventions to improve the vocabulary and narrative performance of adolescents (mean age = 12.8 years) with language disorder. The language and communication programmes (narrative, vocabulary and combined narrative and vocabulary) were delivered by TAs in the classroom, three times per week, for 45–60 min each, over 6 weeks, totalling 18 sessions. Standardized and intervention‐specific measures were used as outcomes. Outcomes & Results Twenty‐one schools with 358 eligible participants were recruited. The three intervention groups showed significant improvements ( d = .296) on a narrative latent variable defined by a standardized narrative assessment (the Expression, Reception and Recall of Narrative Instrument—ERRNI), but there were no significant improvements on an overall vocabulary latent variable compared with the waiting control group. Differential effects were found on some non‐standardized intervention‐specific measures with the narrative group making significantly more progress on narrative tasks compared with the waiting control group, the vocabulary group showing the same pattern on specific vocabulary tasks, and the combined narrative and vocabulary group making significantly more progress on some of the intervention‐specific narrative, and all the intervention‐specific vocabulary outcomes compared with the waiting control group. Conclusions & Implications It is possible to improve narrative but not vocabulary skills, as assessed by standardized measures, in secondary school students with a relatively brief group TA‐delivered intervention. There were differential effects for both narrative and vocabulary with intervention‐specific measures. Future work is required to explore whether more intensive and longer lasting interventions would be more effective and to identify which students in this age group are most likely to benefit from such interventions.

Oral language comprehension interventions in school-age children and adolescents with developmental language disorder: A systematic scoping review

“…Autism & Developmental Language Impairments the present review the results extracted from the article of Joffe et al (2019) indicate that there was an improvement in receptive vocabulary in one outcome measure. Narrative comprehension was not assessed individually.…”

“…Focusing only on oral language comprehension possibly leads to a difference between what is reported in the present review and the individual studies included in the present review. For example, the abstract by Joffe et al (2019) indicates that there were significant improvements in narrative, but not in vocabulary. In Table 1.…”

Investigating Adolescent Discourse in Critical Thinking: Monologic Responses to Stories Containing a Moral Dilemma

“…Adolescence is a time of subtle but definite developmental advancement of oral language skills across syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (Joffe et al, 2019;Nippold, 2014Nippold, , 2016. In order to engage effectively with peers and others in real-world contexts, adolescents need to develop increasing competency in a range of discourse types, for example, conversation, narration, exposition, and persuasion (Heilmann et al, 2020;Snow & Powell, 2008;Westerveld & Moran, 2011), with a growing emphasis on peer interactions over family (Wadman et al, 2011).…”

“…Vocabulary expands to encompass more abstract and complex concepts relating to curricular subjects and complex syntax used in texts must be processed with transfer of skills into adolescents' own writing. Moreover, adolescents' language competence is broadened and challenged by the need to master a range of academic discourse genres, such as debating, persuading, reasoning, and critical thinking (Conti-Ramsden & Durkin, 2012;Joffe et al, 2019).…”

Narrative group intervention in DLD: Learning to tell the plot

“…However, progress has been made. Recently, a randomized controlled trial was conducted by Joffe et al (2019), which investigated the efficacy of narrative and vocabulary intervention methods, using children on a waiting list as a control group.…”