Intervention in Syntactic Skills in Pupils with Developmental Language Disorder

The main objective of this research has been to verify the effectiveness of an intervention program on syntactic skills of pupils with typical development and with developmental language disorder.

A total of 99 five-year-old pupils from schools of Tenerife (Spain) participated. The CELF-4 Recalling Sentences, Formulated Sentences, and Sentence Structure subtests were used. The intervention program consisted of 40 sessions implemented by teachers and speech language therapists. Three levels of practice were organized: in the ordinary classroom (large group and small group) and in the support classroom.

Pupils diagnosed with developmental language disorder initially performed worse on syntax than those with typical development. In addition, the goodness of an intervention program was verified especially for Recalling sentences, and, to a lesser extent, for Sentences Structure, which improves in the experimental group with typical development as well as in the control and experimental groups with language development disorder.

A collaborative and inclusive intervention program that uses implicit techniques favors the improvement of certain aspects of the syntactic processing of pupils with developmental language disorder.