Camarata, S., Stiles, S., & Birer, S. (2024). Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions for Developmental Language Disorder. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 1-15. doi: 10.1044/2023_AJSLP-23-00116
Key terms that are in this paper:
Naturalistic intervention: interventions that help DLD children to learn language and communication in real-life environments.
Expressive vocabulary: the words you use to talk or write.
Receptive vocabulary: the words you understand when you hear or read it.
Cross-modal generalisation: it examines whether interventions that improve receptive vocabulary can also improve expressive vocabulary, and vice versa.
Aim of the paper:
Naturalistic interventions are used to treat language-related symptoms in autism. There were few examples of using naturalistic interventions to help children with DLD. This study aimed to:
Test whether a naturalistic intervention can help children with DLD learn expressive and/or receptive vocabulary.
Explore the cross-model generalisation in vocabulary learning. That is, whether children learn to use words before they understand them, and vice versa.
What was found:
DLD children were better at using and understand words with the help of a naturalistic intervention.
Some children learn to use words before they understand them, and others understand words before they can use them.
DLD children usually learn to use words before they understand them. Typically developed children may be quicker in understanding new words than DLD children.
The ability of cross-modal generalisation also varied between DLD children. They may sometimes be able to understand words before using them.
What does this mean?
Naturalistic intervention could help children with DLD learn vocabulary.
The ability to generalise varies between individuals. Interventions meeting individuals’ needs within the Naturalistic intervention framework may be more beneficial for children with DLD.
Clinicians and researchers could use the naturalistic intervention framework to design language interventions for children with DLD.
Where can I read this paper?
This paper is not open access. If you wish to read the full paper, please email E-DLD@bath.ac.uk and request a copy of the paper.
Research summary written by Shimin Wang