Pattern-Based Target Selection for Treatment of Irregular Past Tense: A Single-Case Experimental Design for Children...

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Child Development

Background:

• Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) often struggle with irregular past tense verb inflection.
• Target selection for DLD intervention is crucial for effective treatment outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a phonological-based pattern approach for selecting irregular past tense verb targets in children with DLD.
• To assess if this approach leads to acquisition, generalization, and increased naturalistic use of treated verbs.

Main Methods:

• Three 7-year-old children with DLD participated in a multiple baseline study.
• Treatment utilized phonological schemas (vowel change, final alveolar, dual change) and therapeutic techniques like narrative generation and play-based activities.
• Verb acquisition and generalization were assessed, alongside naturalistic verb use.

Main Results:

• Two of three participants demonstrated positive acquisition of treated irregular verbs.
• Generalization to untreated verbs within and across phonological schemas occurred for two participants.
• No significant increase in accurate irregular verb production in naturalistic contexts was observed.

Conclusions:

• A pattern-based approach to target selection shows potential for treating irregular past tense verb deficits in children with DLD.
• Treatment effectiveness varied across participants, suggesting individual factors influence outcomes.
• Further research is needed to identify factors contributing to variable treatment responses in DLD.