Bridging the Gap Between Language and Literacy: Evidence from Interventions in Young Greek-Speaking Children with...

Area of Science:

• Child Language Acquisition
• Neurodevelopmental Disorders
• Speech and Language Therapy

Background:

• Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) presents persistent challenges in language acquisition, impacting morphosyntax, vocabulary, and phonology.
• DLD often co-occurs with Specific Learning Disabilities, sharing underlying mechanisms and leading to overlapping difficulties like impaired phonological processing and reading comprehension deficits.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the effects of distinct semantic versus phonological intervention programs on the oral language skills of preschool children with DLD.
• To compare the efficacy of these interventions and a control group over a 16-week period with follow-up assessments.

Main Methods:

• 107 Greek children with DLD (aged 4;1-5;10) were randomly assigned to phonological (n=35), semantic (n=35), or control (n=37) groups.
• Interventions were delivered individually twice weekly for 16 weeks, with language performance assessed at baseline, post-intervention, and 4-month follow-up.
• Repeated-measures ANOVAs were used to analyze within- and between-group differences.

Main Results:

• Phonological training significantly enhanced phonological awareness (d=0.80) and yielded short-term vocabulary gains.
• Semantic intervention led to sustained improvements in vocabulary (d=0.45).
• While the semantic group showed slight improvement over the control, no significant difference was found between the two intervention groups, indicating domain-specific benefits.

Conclusions:

• Differential but complementary effects were observed for semantic and phonological interventions in children with DLD.
• Combining semantic and phonological approaches may optimize language and literacy development in preschool children with DLD.
• These findings provide evidence-based guidance for early intervention strategies targeting DLD.