Janet A. Norris

Language Intervention within Naturalistic Environments

As language intervention becomes more naturalistic and interactive, it is important that organization and systematicity be maintained within therapy. Speech-language pathologists must be clear in the goals and objectives that are established, and in the methods that are used to facilitate the emergence of these language behaviors. Yet naturalistic therapy depends to a large extent upon the spontaneously occurring events, utterances, and communicative situations that arise in the context of play, daily routines, and instructional activities. This article discusses general principles of intervention that impose organization within naturalistic interactions. The general structure of the intervention process will be presented, including strategies for controlling for activity and response complexity, techniques for facilitating a communicative response, and methods for providing natural consequences. Goals and objectives that can be used to quantify the results of intervention are also discussed.

Whole language intervention for school-age children

From more to less: language learning as a whole to part process. From less to more: a model of language organized along the situational, discourse, and semantic dimensions. When more is less: the effects of context oral and written language. When less is more: intervention for the early elementary level child. Deriving more from less: developing implicit understanding of language.

Comparison of Process Targeting and Whole Language Treatments for Phonologically Delayed Preschool Children.

Two, 4-year-old phonologically delayed children were treated using two intervention approaches for a 6-week period. The phonological approach targeted cluster reduction through practice in producti...

Efficacy of Expansions and Cloze Procedures in the Development of Interpretations by Preschool Children Exhibiting Delayed Language Development

Recent intervention studies have demonstrated that adult-provided expansions of child utterances during storybook reading can result in preschool childrens development of two-word utterances that describe characters and their actions as well as grammatical morphemes that are targeted for development via expansions. The present study used an alternating-treatments experimental design to compare the effects of two styles of storybook reading on the production of interpretations by two preschool children experiencing delayed language development. One reading style used a combination of expansions and cloze procedures; the other provided questions followed by modeling of appropriate answers. The children produced more answers to questions regarding the storybook, more interpretations, and syntactically more complex utterances in the condition using expansions and cloze procedures. Results are discussed with respect to the use of these techniques in naturalistic intervention and the relationship between their use and the discourse context of the intervention sessions.

Whole Language in Theory and PracticeImplications for Language Intervention

The increasing attention to the whole language movement in speech-language pathology is a natural result of the evolution of our field toward more interactive and naturalistic intervention practices. This paper presents the historical influence of many disciplines that have led to the whole language movement and some of the theoretical principles underlying this philosophy. The differences between assumptions underlying traditional intervention practices are contrasted with those of whole language. Specific suggestions for implementing whole language intervention with language-disordered children is presented, including using theme building to achieve long- and short-term objectives, accomplishing multiple goals through collaborative activities, and facilitating the language learning process using scaffolding strategies and developmentally appropriate interactions.

Providing Language Remediation in the ClassroomAn Integrated Language-to-Reading Intervention Method

Traditionally, speech-language intervention has been offered to language-impaired children in a treatment room apart from the classroom, and separate from the activities and curricula that the child encounters within the school environment. This article describes a language-to-reading intervention method, termed Communicative Reading Strategies, that can be effectively used to provide language intervention within the context of the childs classroom reading group. A passage from childrens literature contained within a reading textbook is used to exemplify the types of language difficulties encountered in the classroom, followed by a transcript modeling principles that can be used to assist children in learning how to deal with the complexities of contextual language. Techniques such as CRS are advantageous because they enable language intervention to be provided within the classroom, resulting in benefits to the child, the classroom teacher, and the speech-language pathologist.

Children's use of memory strategies: Relevance to voice output communication aid use

Memory strategies are implicated in the use of voice output communication aids. They are necessary to facilitate the memorization and subsequent recall of information, including preprogrammed vocabulary (i.e., single words and longer texts) and codes that retrieve vocabulary programmed under several keys (e.g., in Minspeak™-based applications). The augmentative and alternative communication field could benefit from existing research that has examined the development of memory strategy use in young children. Memory strategies differ in terms of their functional properties, such as automaticity, reliance on symbolic mediators, and overall complexity. Developmental constraints are reflected in predictable performance errors. Adults can help children become insightful about when, how, and why to apply a memory strategy. This insight, called metamemory, can motivate a child to complete boring tasks (e.g., memorizing codes).

A comparison between children who stutter and their normally fluent peers on a story retelling task

Narratives produced during a story-retelling task by 12 children who stutter and matched normally fluent peers were compared. Each narrative was analyzed for inclusion of story grammar components and level of sophistication. Additionally, the narratives produced by the children who stuttered were analyzed to determine the existence of a relationship between stuttering frequency and level of sophistication of the narrative. There were no significant group differences in the narratives and a weak relationship between narrative complexity and stuttering frequency. Qualitative analysis of the narratives revealed three subgroups of children who stutter, indicating that for some of these children, subtle language impairment may be a component of the fluency disorder.

Functional Language Intervention in the Classroom: Avoiding the Tutoring Trap.

As models of language intervention embrace the concept of functional communication, services for school-age children are increasingly being provided in the classroom and involve the use of classroom curricula. Because these models are new, little guidance is available to the speech-language pathologist (SLP) to determine how to provide meaningful language intervention to meet the language learning needs of students in this context. In practice, classroom intervention often results in the SLP assuming a tutoring role, attempting to provide language intervention while trying to help the child complete a homework assignment or study for an upcoming test. This article offers some alternatives to this approach by discussing how the SLP can function in the consultative role to help to modify classroom practices and in the direct service role to enable the child to increase and refine functional language abilities.

Comparison of Adult-Initiated vs. Child-Initiated Interaction Styles with Handicapped Prelanguage Children

Speech-language pathologists are increasingly providing intervention to younger and more severely handicapped children. The methods and strategies that the adult uses in interacting with this population are important considerations in treatment. The results of this study comparing adult-initiated vs. child-initiated interaction styles indicate that prelanguage children engage in a greater frequency and higher developmental level of communicative behaviors when the interaction is child-initiated.