Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools最新文献

Purpose: This clinical focus article examines six critical elements of a successful and evidence-based summer Intensive Preschool Language Program and the lessons learned over the 9 years of its implementation. The program serves a heterogeneous group of children who have been diagnosed with a language disorder, including children with developmental language disorder, children who are dual language learners, and children identified with other associated conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, all of whom share the goal of expanding expressive language skills.

Method: Each critical element is discussed in terms of its significance to the program's success, how it has been adapted to better meet the needs of the children based on ongoing observations and progress monitoring, and the key clinical insights gained throughout the program's duration.

Results: We present three case studies illustrating analysis of pretreatment language samples, selection of goals and treatment methods, and documentation of client progress in syntax and narrative development to showcase different profiles of client growth within the program. We provide a comparison of a high- versus low-intensity program and demonstrate that a lower intensity program was effective for children with high self-regulation needs.

Conclusions: The results highlight the value of implementing a child-focused treatment approach, utilizing efficient and targeted language sample analysis to identify goals and monitor progress, the effectiveness of addressing syntax and narrative macrostructure at increasing levels of elaboration and complexity for preschool children, and the importance of aligning program intensity with the child's self-regulation needs.

Purpose: Identification of speech sound disorder (SSD) in children who are multilingual is challenging for many speech-language pathologists (SLPs). This may be due to a lack of clinical resources to accurately identify SSD in multilingual children as easily as for monolingual children. The purpose of this article is to describe features of multilingual speech acquisition, identify evidence-based resources for the differential diagnosis of SSD in speakers of understudied language paradigms, and demonstrate how culturally responsive practices can be achieved in different linguistic contexts.

Method: Examples of different approaches used to inform accurate diagnosis of SSD in 2- to 8-year-old multilingual children are described. The approaches used included (a) considering adult speech models, (b) completing validation studies, and (c) streamlining evidence-informed techniques. These methods were applied across four different language paradigms in countries within the Global North and Global South (e.g., Jamaican Creole-English, Jamaica; Vietnamese-English, Australia; French and additional languages, Belgium; Icelandic-Polish, Iceland). The culturally responsive nature of approaches in each cultural/linguistic setting is highlighted as well as the broader applicability of these approaches.

Results: Findings related to dialect-specific features, successful validation of tools to describe functional speech intelligibility and production accuracy, and the utility of different techniques applied in the diagnosis of SSD are outlined.

Conclusions: Culturally responsive methods offer a useful framework for guiding SLPs' diagnostic practices. However, successful application of these practices is best operationalized at a local level in response to the linguistic, cultural, and geographic context.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.29090000.

Purpose: Children with Down syndrome often have poor speech intelligibility, which can mask expressive language competence; this, in turn, can lead to serious misconceptions about overall competence and intellectual abilities. Although aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can be used to bridge these gaps, children with Down syndrome are not always provided with consistent access to focused AAC language intervention supports. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of implementing the AAC Generative Language Intervention (AAC-GLI) approach on the aided expressive grammar productions of young children with Down syndrome.

Method: A randomized controlled trial was used to evaluate the results. The study included a control group and an intervention group, with the families of both groups participating in half-day AAC implementation workshops and all children receiving AAC devices to use throughout the course of the study. The intervention group also received 4 months of twice-weekly play-based AAC-GLI intervention sessions. Progress was measured using a mean length of utterance (MLU) specially designed for aided communicators (weighted MLU in symbols [W-MLUSym]).

Results: Strong effects indicated superior performance on W-MLUSym for the intervention group, despite reduced enrollment and increased attrition yielded by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusions: AAC-GLI can be used to teach young children with Down syndrome to improve their aided expressive grammar skills. Providing AAC language intervention for young children with Down syndrome can be a critical step to support ongoing expressive language development and use as well as overall functional communication.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to gather evidence about the efficacy of performance feedback for improving school-based speech-language pathologist (SLP) narrative mediated learning implementation fidelity and (b) to determine SLPs' knowledge and attitudes about dynamic assessment (DA).

Method: This investigation used a single-subject case design with baseline, intervention, and generalization phases. Participants were three elementary school SLPs who each conducted 13 DA sessions over 4 days. Data were collected on the number of mediated learning experience (MLE) procedures completed per session. The independent variable included training and performance feedback. During the intervention phase, clinicians received performance feedback using a fidelity rubric. In the generalization phase, each clinician was observed conducting three DA sessions to determine if fidelity to the rubric was maintained.

Results: All three clinicians demonstrated immediate, significant improvement when performance feedback was introduced. This was evidenced by all intervention phase data points for each clinician falling outside the baseline 2-SD band. Two clinicians maintained MLE procedural fidelity with 0% nonoverlapping data between the intervention and generalization phases.

Conclusions: Performance feedback using a fidelity rubric is an effective intervention for improving narrative MLE procedures and fidelity. The training, feedback, and experience gained by the participants shifted their perspectives about DA and its utility as an evaluation tool for culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Purpose: Collaboration between teachers and speech-language pathologists is essential for supporting diverse learners, particularly those with communication challenges. This article explores the use of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a common language to enhance interprofessional collaboration, fostering a shared framework for designing inclusive educational environments. By implementing UDL principles, teachers and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) can align their strategies, emphasizing flexibility in instructional methods, engagement, and assessment. This shared approach enables both professions to address student needs more holistically, bridging traditional professional divides and creating a cohesive support system within the school setting.

Method: The tutorial discusses specific strategies for integrating UDL considerations into collaborative practices, highlighting the skills and knowledge SLPs can bring to the classroom from the therapy room. We include a case example to illustrate how best practices from speech-language pathology and UDL Guidelines can be used together to improve vocabulary learning in high school students.

Results: Language within the UDL framework can serve as a useful tool to highlight both skillsets of teachers and SLPs leading to transdisciplinary collaboration. This tutorial builds on prior research of successful models of Tier 1 teacher-SLP collaboration.

Conclusion: This collaborative project demonstrates a realistic use of UDL as a common framework not only to enhance communication and reduces barriers among team members but also to support effective, accessible learning experiences for all students.

Purpose: The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate how teachers in the United States understand and perceive developmental language disorder (DLD). This study used a survey to examine teachers' understanding of DLD and the impact of DLD at school to inform advocacy efforts within the discipline of communication sciences and disorders (CSD) and collaborations between speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and teachers.

Method: The survey was administered online via Qualtrics and consisted of 27 closed-response questions (i.e., Likert scale or multiple-choice) and four open-response questions. We analyzed the closed-response questions using descriptive statistics and logistic regression. The open-response questions were analyzed using a summative content analysis.

Results: Two hundred four responses were included in the analysis. Survey respondents successfully identified language-based activities that would be difficult for children with DLD, such as participating in conversations. Many respondents were not familiar with the term DLD nor the lifelong nature of the disorder. Respondents' self-rated ability to recognize students with DLD, determine the educational impact of DLD, and use classroom accommodations varied based on type of teaching role, grade taught, and previous training in language disorders. Content analysis of open responses revealed four categories capturing respondents' descriptions of DLD: social impact, communication, school environment, and teacher insight. Many respondents felt uncertain about characteristics of DLD and its impact across the school day.

Conclusions: Although many survey respondents were unfamiliar with the term DLD and associated diagnostic criteria, they accurately identified many tasks that would be difficult for students with DLD on both closed-response and open-response questions. Practical implications for SLPs and future directions for CSD researchers are provided to improve DLD awareness efforts and to establish shared terminology about language impairment among CSD researchers, practicing SLPs, and educators.

Purpose: This longitudinal study investigated the impact of different academic programs of primary language instruction (Spanish or English) on the dual language development of Spanish-English bilingual children. Types of academic settings offered to bilingual students as well as differing views and outcomes based on language of instruction are outlined.

Method: Narrative retell language samples from 90 typically developing Spanish-English bilingual children elicited across six consecutive academic semesters from the fall of kindergarten to the spring of second grade were used to estimate Spanish and English language skills (grammar and lexical diversity) longitudinally. Participants academically instructed primarily in English (n = 45) were matched to primarily Spanish-instructed participants by age, gender, maternal level of education, and family income level.

Results: The estimates of conditional growth curve models indicated that bilingual children differed in their rates of Spanish and English oral language development as a function of their primary academic language of instruction. Loss of Spanish grammatical skills was estimated for English- and Spanish-instructed participants.

Conclusions: A wide range of expressive language skills and differing rates and directions of growth is present in typically developing bilingual children. The language of instruction explains some of the variability seen. These take-home findings should be considered in clinical assessment of dual language learners to avoid misdiagnosis of language impairment.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.29202743.