Linguistic pragmatics and language intervention strategies

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Traditional language assessment often overlooks the functional use of language.
• Pragmatics, the study of language in context, offers a more holistic view of communication.
• There's a growing need to integrate pragmatic principles into clinical practices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the implications of a pragmatic orientation for language assessment and intervention.
• To propose changes in assessment content and process based on pragmatic principles.
• To redefine intervention goals and reinforcer selection within a pragmatic framework.

Main Methods:

• Review of current research on pragmatics and its application to language disorders.
• Conceptual analysis of how pragmatic principles can inform assessment and intervention strategies.
• Integration of findings to propose a pragmatic-based model for language development.

Main Results:

• A pragmatic orientation necessitates evaluating communicative functions and interactional behaviors.
• Assessment should focus on both initiating and responding communicative dimensions.
• Intervention goals should prioritize generalized communicative functions over mere linguistic structures.

Conclusions:

• Shifting focus to pragmatics fundamentally changes language assessment and intervention.
• Effective intervention requires facilitating generalized communicative functions using language as a tool.
• Appropriate reinforcers in intervention should sustain, not disrupt, communicative interactions.