Treatment Targets for Co-Occurring Speech-Language Impairment: A Case Study.
Philip N Combiths, Jessica A Barlow, Jennifer Taps Richard and 1 others
PMID 31214657WHAT IT FOUND
A single kindergarten child with co-occurring speech and language deficits improved untreated sounds after 14 weeks targeting a complex final cluster.
Grammar did not improve on tests, so this shows feasibility, not proof it works for other children.
Key findings
01Max's overall consonant accuracy rose from 43.3% at baseline to 60.9% after treatment, and untreated sounds showed gains.
02On generalization probes, Max showed only nominal improvement in regular third-person singular and past tense marking and no improvement in plural marking.
03Improvements seen in the post-treatment language sample cannot be attributed to treatment because baseline stability was not established for language sample measures.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This was one child, so the results cannot show what will happen for other children. There was no comparison group; the child served as his own control. Baseline stability was established only for probe measures, not for language sample measures, so language sample changes may reflect maturation. Treatment was constrained by school schedules and delivered in a small group with another child receiving a different phonological target. The change score used a population standard deviation from other children, not from this child.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that treating a complex final cluster improves grammatical marking in children with co-occurring speech and language impairment. This was one child, grammatical marking on probes did not improve, and language sample changes could not be separated from maturation.