Individualized Narrative Intervention for School-Age Children With Specific Language Impairment.

Purpose This study extends the research on narrative intervention by evaluating the effect of a standard treatment protocol, Story Champs (Petersen & Spencer, 2012), on personal narrative generations of school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method Four second-grade, 8- to 9-year-old boys with SLI participated in this multiple baseline across behaviors, single-case design study that was repeated across participants. Each one-on-one intervention session involved eight steps across two intervention segments: story retell and personal story generation. The interventionist provided systematic scaffolding (visual and verbal supports) that was faded within each session. Three individualized story grammar elements per participant were targeted sequentially across the weeks of intervention based on each participant's needs identified in baseline. The dependent variable probe (personal narrative generation) was administered at the beginning of each twice-weekly session, and individualized story grammar elements were scored on a 4-point rubric (dependent variable). Results In this single-case research design study, a functional relation was evaluated for each participant (i.e., replication of an effect across three story grammar elements). A functional relation between Story Champs intervention and the dependent variable was observed for two participants. Conclusion Results provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy of individually administered Story Champs intervention for children with SLI.

Speech-Language Pathologists' Clinical Decision Making for Children With Specific Language Impairment.

Purpose The speech-language pathologist's (SLP's) role for the specific language impairment (SLI) population is to provide specialized intervention targeting underlying deficits. However, children with SLI are often underrepresented on caseloads despite a high prevalence of the disorder and known long-term impacts. This study explored how SLPs use research to inform clinical decision making for SLI under neutral workplace circumstances. Method A national web-based survey was distributed to SLPs ( n = 563) to investigate assessment and intervention clinical decision making for individuals with SLI. Vignettes portrayed various clinical profiles of SLI across dimensions of affectedness (child characteristics). Respondents made clinical decisions under neutral workplace conditions to remove confounds of work setting, policies, and caseload/time management constraints. The influence of child and practitioner characteristics on clinical decision making was explored. Results Variation across the vignettes emerged for the clinical decisions of SLP service recommendation, service delivery, intervention contents, specific treatment goals, and a monitoring approach. Practitioner characteristics had little influence, while child characteristics influenced responses across the clinical decision-making process. Assessment standard scores and percentiles were most strongly associated with SLP service recommendation. Conclusion The use of vignette methodology was demonstrated for the discipline of communication sciences and disorders. SLPs recommended services for individuals with SLI at higher rates than in actual practice; however, variation across the clinical decision-making process occurred. Implications include the reduction and removal of constraining workplace characteristics and increasing SLP competency for identifying the diagnostic profile of SLI.

The use of evaluative expressions in the narratives of adolescents with a history of SLI.

Typically, young children diagnosed with specific language impairment (SLI; also called Developmental language disorder, DLD) have been found to show weakness in narrative development, and such weakness has been judged to be unlikely to resolve over time. However, developmental outcomes for adolescents with a prior SLI diagnosis have not been thoroughly studied. In particular, studies on the evaluative aspects of narratives of such persons are almost non-existent. Here we examine the question whether narrative evaluation of adolescents formerly diagnosed with SLI remains problematic into adolescence or comes to resemble more typical narrative performance. We compare the use of evaluative expressions in the narratives of 19 adolescents diagnosed with SLI against 19 typically language developing (TLD) peers. Spoken narratives by the SLI group (Mean age = 14.3; SD = 0.64) and TLD group (Mean age = 14.5; SD = 0.84) using the wordless picture storybook "Frog, where are you?" ( https://childes.talkbank.org/access/Clinical-MOR/Conti/Conti4.html ) were analysed. Each narrative was coded for evaluative clauses, types of evaluative devices (frames of mind, character speech, hedges, negatives, and causal connectives), as well as evaluative perspectives (global vs. local). Although the quantitative analysis did not reveal any significant differences between the two groups, the qualitative analysis showed certain notable strengths in the narrative skills of the focal group of SLI adolescents. Results suggest that adolescents with a history of SLI may approximate TLD narrative skill in evaluating their own narratives, but additional work with more sensitive measures applied at intervals are needed to illuminate developmental pathways of narrative production and of evaluative capacities in adolescents formerly diagnosed with SLI.