Dosage has been identified as important element of intervention that has the potential to affect intervention efficacy. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of dose schedule for treatment of grammatical morphology deficits in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Sixteen 4-5 year old children with SLI participated in a 6-week intervention program during which children received equivalent daily Enhanced Conversational Recast treatment targeting grammatical morpheme errors. Half of the children received treatment in one 30-minute session (massed condition). The other half received treatment in three 10-minutes sessions (spaced condition) over a 3-hour period. Progress was assessed three times weekly by probing a child’s use of his/her treatment morpheme and untreated morpheme (a maturational control) in untreated contexts. Pre-to-post treatment morpheme usage differed significantly for children regardless of dosage condition, demonstrating overall treatment efficacy. There were no differences in treatment effects for the massed and spaced conditions. In addition, nonverbal IQ and receptive vocabulary test scores correlated with treatment effect sizes. The study adds to evidence that Enhanced Conversational Recast can produce positive results, in a relatively short period of time, for children with specific language impairment. Moreover, it appears that clinicians may have some flexibility in terms of the dose schedule they employ to deliver this treatment in an evidence-based manner.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/560819 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Meyers, Christina |
| Contributors | Plante, Elena, Alt, Mary, Maas, Edwin, Plante, Elena |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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