Dose Schedule and Enhanced Conversational Recast Treatment for Children With Specific Language Impairment

Dosage has been identified as an important element of treatment that may affect treatment efficacy. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of dose schedule for treatment of grammatical morphology deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI).

Sixteen 4-to-5-year-old children with SLI participated in a 5-week intervention consisting of equivalent daily Enhanced Conversational Recast treatment (Plante et al., 2014) targeting grammatical morphology. Half of the children received treatment in one 30-min session (massed condition). Half received treatment in three 10-min sessions (spaced condition) within one 4-hr period. Progress was assessed 3 times weekly by probing a child's use of his or her treatment morpheme and untreated morpheme (a maturational control) in untreated contexts.

Pre- to posttreatment morpheme usage differed significantly for children regardless of dosage condition, and pre to post usage of an untreated morpheme was unchanged, demonstrating overall treatment efficacy. There were no differences in treatment effects for the massed and spaced conditions.

The study adds to evidence that Enhanced Conversational Recast can produce positive results in a short period of time for children with SLI. Furthermore, clinicians may have some flexibility in terms of the dose schedule they use to deliver this treatment in an evidence-based manner.