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Language intervention: A pragmatic approach

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Abstract

The approach to language intervention described in this paper provides a means of teaching pragmatically appropriate and effective uses of language in conversational contexts while simultaneously teaching the production and comprehension of specific linguistic forms. The approach, developed in work with seriously language-disabled young children, consists of a series of communication games. These games, which focus and intensify certain characteristics of conversational situations, teach vocabulary, syntax, and articulation as devices for serving the same pragmatic functions these devices serve in ordinary conversation. The games integrate the advantages of the traditional language lessons and those of incidental teaching. Spontaneous speech data collected before and after a 4-month interval from trained and contrast-group children suggest the positive impact of the intervention on the language performance of children with no or moderate cognitive delays, but the results do not suggest a similar impact on children with severe cognitive delays. The results suggest that the intervention merits further application and evaluation, with particular attention to the control of cognitive level.

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The research reported in this paper was supported by Grant G007904630 from the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education. The authors would like to express their gratitude to the many teachers, speech and language clinicians, and children who participated in the development of the communication games. We would especially like to thank Cathy Cuneo for her contributions. We are also grateful to Prof. Eve V. Clark for her valuable comments on a very early version of this paper.

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Conant, S., Budoff, M., Hecht, B. et al. Language intervention: A pragmatic approach. J Autism Dev Disord 14, 301–317 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02409581

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