| Abstract: |
Six preschoolers aged 3:6 to 4:8 (years:months), with moderate-to-severe disorders in both language and phonology, received intervention that differentially focused on language, phonology, or both domains, Phonological intervention involved elicited imitation techniques and minimal pair contrasting. Language intervention involved an indirect narrative approach with focused stimulation The combination approach involved features of both. All subjects had both language and phonology goals, but the emphasis for these differed in the different treatments. Regardless of the intervention approach, a modified "cycles" approach was incorporated for phonology goals. Extensive phonological and morphological generalization probes, spontaneous language sampling, and use of the proportional change index for mean length of utterance served as measures of progress. Subjects who received direct phonological intervention showed a moderate improvement in both phonology and language. Subjects who received language intervention demonstrated small improvement in language and negligible improvement in phonology Subjects who received the combined intervention approach showed marked improvement in both domains. |
