This purpose is the one most commonly invoked when working with children who have developmental language disorders (DLD).Ī third option identified by Olswang and Bain is to teach compensatory strategies, not specific language behaviors. This makes the child a better communicator but does not guarantee that he or she will not need further help at a later time. We teach the child, for instance, to expand the number of words and grammatical morphemes in sentences, to produce a broader range of semantic relations, or to use language more flexibly and appropriately. In this case we attempt to improve the child’s discrete aspects of language function by teaching specific behaviors. Olswang and Bain (1991) identified this second choice as changing the disorder. In these more common cases, we must settle for something less than changing the child into a normal language learner. Most children present with language disorders of unknown origin or associated with incurable conditions, such as intellectual disabilities or autism. In the real world of language intervention, though, cases in which the underlying cause of the impairment is both known and fully remediable are the exception. Similarly, a young child who suffered a brain injury and developed an acquired aphasia might require intervention to restore language function, but a combination of intervention and the brain’s normal plasticity can sometimes result in language learning’s proceeding more or less normally, without need for further intervention after a period of time ( Hanten et al., 2009). Once these developmentally appropriate skills are achieved, normal acquisition could proceed, ideally anyway, without further intervention. For a child with a hearing impairment, for example, if the loss is discovered during early childhood and amplification or cochlear implantation can be used to achieve normal or nearly normal hearing, the language pathologist might need only to provide the child with help in getting language skills to approximate the child’s developmental level ( Geers, 2004 Niparko et al., 2010). In a few instances, though, this might be a realistic goal.
#Principle of intervention how to
Frequently we do not even know what the underlying deficit is, let alone how to alleviate it. Unfortunately, it is not usually possible. Of course, all of us would like to achieve this with all our clients. The first is to change or eliminate the underlying problem, rendering the child a normal language learner, one who will not need any further intervention. The first question we have to ask is, overall, what is the purpose of the intervention we are proposing? Olswang and Bain (1991) discussed three major purposes of intervention. Let’s examine these factors in some detail. Effective language intervention involves a great deal of thought and a wide range of decision making, and many factors go into the process of choosing what, how, and where we will attempt to improve the client’s communication. Achieving all these goals is quite a challenge, one that requires us to be more than merely technicians. To be ethical (American Speech-Language and Hearing Association, 2010) we also must be able to show that intervention has led to changes in language behavior that would not occur if no intervention were provided. The goal of our intervention, then, is not only to teach language behaviors but also to make the child a better communicator. Successful intervention results in the child’s being able use the forms and functions targeted in the intervention to effect real communication. The result of a successful language intervention program is not simply that a child responds correctly to more items on a test or accurately imitates the language stimuli given by the clinician.
Discuss principles of evidence-based practice. Describe methods of evaluating treatment outcomes.ħ. List and discuss various contexts for providing intervention.Ħ.
Describe interventions at various points on the continuum of naturalness.ĥ. Discuss way of identifying appropriate goals for communication intervention.Ĥ. List ways in which intervention can change communicative behavior.ģ. Discuss the various purposes of intervention.Ģ. Readers of this chapter will be able to do the following:ġ.
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