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A program for achieving generalization of grammatical rules to spontaneous discourse
The Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders
|May 1, 1982
Summary
This study shows that a structured therapy program effectively teaches children with language disorders new grammar rules. These trained rules generalized to their everyday conversations, demonstrating successful language acquisition.
Area of Science:
- Child language acquisition
- Speech-language pathology
- Developmental linguistics
Background:
- Children with language disorders often struggle with grammatical rule generalization.
- Effective therapeutic interventions are needed to improve spontaneous language use.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate a 4-step program for generalizing target grammatical rules in children with language disorders.
- To assess the efficacy of the program in spontaneous discourse.
Main Methods:
- A multiple baseline design was employed with four language-disordered children.
- The program involved clinician-arranged child-evoked target rules.
- Therapy progressed by increasing communicative demands and reducing clinician modeling.
Main Results:
- Trained grammatical rules significantly increased in frequency during spontaneous discourse.
- Untrained rules did not show similar increases initially.
- Subsequent training on previously untrained rules also led to increased usage.
Conclusions:
- The 4-step program is effective for teaching and generalizing grammatical rules in language-disordered children.
- The findings support a systematic approach to language intervention for improved discourse skills.