Purpose: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) lag behind children with typical language (TL) in their grammatical development, despite equivalent early exposure to recasts in conversation (M. E. Fey, T. E. Krulik, D. F. Loeb, & K. Proctor-Williams, 1999) and the ability to learn from recasts in intervention as quickly as do children with TL (K. E. Nelson, S. Camarata, J. Welsh, L. Butovsky, & M. Camarata, 1996). This experiment tested whether this apparent paradox could be attributed to variations in the density of recasts in conversation versus intervention. Method: Thirteen children (7–8 years of age) with SLI and 13 language-similar children (5–6 years of age) with TL were exposed to 3 recast densities of novel irregular past tense verbs (none, conversation-like, intervention-like) over 5 sessions. Outcomes were based on spontaneous conversational productions and a post-test probe. Results: As predicted, at conversation-like densities, children with TL more accurately produced the target verbs they heard in recasts than in nonrecast models (d = 0.58), children with SLI showed no differences, and children with TL produced the verbs more accurately than did children with SLI (d = 0.54). Contrary to expectations, at higher intervention-like recast densities, the SLI group did not improve their accuracy, and the TL group performances were significantly poorer (d = 0.47). Conclusion: At conversational levels, recasts facilitated greater verb learning than models alone but only in the TL group. Increasing recast density to the modest levels in this brief intervention experiment did not benefit children with SLI and led to poorer learning for children with TL. To optimize learning, efficiency of recast distribution as well as rate must be considered.

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The incidence children exposed to drugs and/or alcohol prenatally is rising rapidly and increasingly appearing on speech-language pathology caseloads. This session provides background information about the problems and neurodevelopmental outcomes. As well, a communication-based intervention approach for babies and their mothers is described with data from case studies.

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Background. This study reports comparative phonological assessment results for children with cleft lip and/or palate (CLP) to typically developing peers using an evaluation tool for early phonological skills. Methods. Children without clefts (NC = noncleft) and 24 children with CLP, ages of 18–36 months, were evaluated using the Profile of Early Expressive Phonological Skills (PEEPSs) [1]. Children interacted with toy manipulatives to elicit a representative sample of target English consonants and syllable structures that are typically acquired by children between 18 and 27 months of age. Results. Results revealed significant differences between the two groups with regard to measures of consonant inventory, place of articulation, manner of production, accuracy, and error patterns. Syllable structure did not indicate differences, with the exception of initial consonant clusters. Conclusions. findings provide support for PEEPS as a viable option for single-word assessment of children with CLP prior to 3 years of age.

Abstract The multiple oppositions approach (Williams, 1992; 2000) was incorporated as the beginning point of intervention for 10 children who exhibited moderate-to-profound phonological impairments. Several variables that potentially affect phonological change were examined in a longitudinal case study of these children. Different models of intervention (multiple oppositions, minimal pairs, and naturalistic speech intelligibility training) were incorporated within different structures of treatment (vertical, horizontal, and cyclical) using a model of phonologic learning that was based on a developmental structuring of intervention. This nontraditional research paradigm is proposed as a possible bridge to link the science and practice of clinical research. Specifically, the clinical reality of providing intervention to children from their initial treatment to discharge provides a broader perspective of treatment efficacy while also serving as a foundation for future areas of more controlled investigations of specific variables.

The relationships between different types of adult-support inferential book reading strategies and young children’s language and literacy competence were examined in 18 studies that included 1134 study participants. van Kleeck’s (2006) descriptions of two levels of inferencing and different types of inferential strategies at each level were used to code and analyze the patterns of correlations between the book reading strategies and the child outcomes. Results showed that parents’ and teachers’ use of different types of inferencing strategies were related to variations in the child outcomes, and that the effects of inferencing were conditioned on the children’s ages. Implications for practice are described.

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