Language intervention: a pragmatic approach

The approach to language intervention described in this paper provides a means of teaching pragmatically appropriate and effective uses of language in conversational contexts while simultaneously teaching the production and comprehension of specific linguistic forms. The approach, developed in work with seriously language-disabled young children, consists of a series of communication games. These games, which focus and intensify certain characteristics of conversational situations, teach vocabulary, syntax, and articulation as devices for serving the same pragmatic functions these devices serve in ordinary conversation. The games integrate the advantages of the traditional language lessons and those of incidental teaching. Spontaneous speech data collected before and after a 4-month interval from trained and contrast-group children suggest the positive impact of the intervention on the language performance of children with no or moderate cognitive delays, but the results do not suggest a similar impact on children with severe cognitive delays. The results suggest that the intervention merits further application and evaluation, with particular attention to the control of cognitive level.