Clinician-child interactions: adjustments in linguistic complexity
Laura S DeThorne1, Ron W Channell
1University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 901 South Sixth Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. lauras@uiuc.edu
American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology
|April 26, 2007
Summary
Speech-language clinicians adjust their language complexity based on a child's abilities. This study found positive associations between child and clinician linguistic measures during therapy sessions.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Speech-Language Pathology
- Developmental Psychology
Background:
- Conversational interactions are crucial for language development.
- Clinician input significantly influences child language acquisition.
- Understanding clinician-child linguistic dynamics is key for effective therapy.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between linguistic complexity used by speech-language clinicians and children with language impairments.
- To determine if clinicians adjust their language based on the child's linguistic level.
Main Methods:
- Correlation analyses were performed on semantic and morphosyntactic language sample measures.
- Data were collected from one experienced speech-language clinician and 29 children with language impairment.
- Child age was statistically controlled for in the analyses.
Main Results:
- Significant positive associations were found between various child and clinician language measures.
- Clinician adjustments in morphosyntactic complexity and vocabulary diversity were strongly linked to children's developmental sentence scores.
- These associations persisted even after accounting for child age.
Conclusions:
- Speech-language clinicians adapt their linguistic complexity in response to the child's input during therapy.
- These findings align with previous research on parent-child and teacher-child interactions.
- Clinicians should consciously consider a child's linguistic profile when structuring their input for optimal therapeutic outcomes.
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