What Works in Therapy: Further Thoughts on Improving Clinical Practice for Children With Language Disorders

Abstract

Although the research is limited, it offers implications for how clinicians do therapy. Children with LI need many learning episodes clustered together within sessions but spread out over time across sessions. Input must be grammatical and consistent while providing varied exemplars of the target features. Learning episodes should actively engage children in producing utterances with the target form, but only after they have had the chance to hear some utterances with that feature. The author suggests a session plan that starts with a structured activity and then incorporates the target form into an embedded activity such as storytelling.

Using Telegraphic Input With Children With Language Delays: A Survey of Speech-Language Pathologists' Practices and Perspectives

“…Over the past several decades, clinical recommendations have been made in support of both telegraphic input (e.g., Willer, 1974; some clinical viewpoints presented in van Kleeck et al, 2010) and grammatical input (Bedore & Leonard, 1995;Conklin, 2010;Eisenberg, 2014;Fey, 2008;Kamhi, 2014;Paul, Norbury, & Gosse, 2018). The general rationale on both sides of this debate has been that the specified type of input (i.e., telegraphic or grammatical) is more beneficial for children with language delays.…”

Maximizing Treatment Efficiency in Developmental Language Disorder: Positive Effects in Half the Time

“…Within cognitive learning, the topic of dose schedule is typically discussed in terms of spaced and massed distribution. Spaced distribution, the putative superior schedule for cognitive learning (e.g., Eisenberg, 2014;Justice, Logan, Schmitt, & Jiang, 2016;Yoder, Fey, & Warren, 2012), and massed distribution have been explored within a variety of language domains, including phonology (Bowen & Cupples, 1999;Ukrainetz, Ross, & Harm, 2009), semantics (Childers & Tomasello, 2002;Goossens, Camp, Verkoeijen, Tabbers, & Zwaan, 2012;Riches, Tomasello, & Conti-Ramsden, 2005;Vlach & Sandhofer, 2012;Vlach, Sandhofer, & Kornell, 2008), and morphosyntax (Ambridge, Theakston, Lieven, & Tomasello, 2006;Bellon-Harn, 2012;Meyers-Denman & Plante, 2016;Smith-Lock, Leitao, Lambert, & Nickels, 2013).…”

“…In their review, Cleave et al (2015) suggest that beneficial recast rates for treatment may be around 0.8-1 per minute, which is more than three times as dense as rates found in nontreatment contexts (Fey, Krulik, Loeb, & Proctor-Williams, 1999). Despite the clearly demonstrated need for knowledge of the optimal treatment density within sessions (Cleave et al, 2015;Eisenberg, 2014;Warren et al, 2007;Yoder et al, 2012), significant gaps still exist in the literature, especially with regard to morphosyntactic treatment for children with DLD.…”

Prologue: Improving Clinical Practice From the Inside Out

“…In her response to Kamhi's assertions, Sarita Eisenberg shifts the focus of our consideration of language intervention with young language learners from choosing therapy goals to focusing on how the intervention is provided (Eisenberg, 2014). Eisenberg discusses the concept of treatment intensity by summarizing research related to dose and dose frequency and then discussing dose management.…”