An Alternative Grammatical Treatment for Children with Language Impairment

描述(由申请人提供)：目前对小学语言障碍(PLD)儿童的语法治疗方法在经过长时间的治疗后只取得了中等程度的显著改善，因此是不够的。据估计，大约14%的幼儿园儿童患有PLD，其中包括那些在语言方面表现出明显弱点的儿童，尽管他们没有达到智力残疾的标准。PLD对早期语言发展有负面影响，并对社会交往、学术工作和终身成就产生长期不利影响。PLD儿童的核心语言弱点之一是语法形式使用不善，这种弱点一直持续到青春期。PLD的长期负面影响的一个原因可能是目前的语法治疗使用的是无效的教学方法。传统的治疗方法使用归纳法(例如，高频地提供有问题的形式的模型)，在这种方法中，学习者被期望隐含地习得和概括目标语法形式。在其他与语言相关的学科中，有证据表明，包含另一种演绎教学法比单独使用归纳法更有效。与传统的归纳法不同，演绎教学的目的是通过直接呈现语言模式或教学规则，使学习者清楚地意识到潜在的语言模式。这项研究的目的是比较传统归纳法和结合演绎教学的方法的有效性。这项研究是一项研究计划的组成部分，该计划的重点是为语言障碍儿童确定有效和有效的干预措施。据预测，演绎-归纳(D-I)相结合的方法将积极激发儿童的元认知加工技能，并将比单纯归纳(I-O)方法对PLD儿童的语法学习产生更大的影响。在强大的初步数据的指导下，这一预测将通过四个具体目标进行检验：(A)确定在教授新的语法形式时，D-I方法是否比I-O方法更有效；(B)确定D-I方法所取得的成果是否随着时间的推移而保持；(C)确定D-I方法在教授三种新的语法形式时是否具有不同的有效性；以及(D)确定D-I方法是否对有和没有显著语言理解缺陷的PLD儿童进行不同程度的有效教学。为了达到这些目标，60名患有PLD的5至7岁儿童将被随机分配到D-I或I-O治疗中。两组的参与者都将有机会学习三种新颖的语法变化。学习将从准确度和反应时间的角度进行评估，包括治疗后立即和一周后的情况。到目前为止，语言干预的主要重点一直是归纳式方法；因此，拟议的替代干预方法的评估代表了当前临床实践的创新转变。纳入演绎方法可能会对PLD儿童的长期结局产生积极影响，并导致临床服务的转变。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Current grammatical treatment approaches for children with primary language disorder (PLD) yield only moderately significant gains after extensive treatment periods and are thus, inadequate. It is estimated that approximately 14% of kindergarten children have PLD, which includes children who exhibit significant weaknesses in language despite failing to meet criteria for intellectual disability. PLD negatively impacts early language development and has long-term detrimental effects on social interactions, academic work, and lifelong achievement. One of the core language weaknesses of children with PLD is poor use of grammatical forms with such weak- nesses persisting well into adolescence. One reason for the long-term negative effects of PLD may be that cur- rent grammatical treatments are using ineffective teaching approaches. Traditional treatments use inductive approaches (e.g., providing models of problematic forms at a high frequency) in which the learner is expected to implicitly acquire and generalize target grammatical forms. Evidence exists in other language-related disciplines that the inclusion of an alternative deductive teaching approach is more effective than inductive approaches alone. Unlike traditional inductive approaches, deductive instruction aims to make the learner explicitly aware of the underlying language pattern by directly presenting the pattern or pedagogic rule. The goal of the proposed study is to compare the efficacy of a traditional inductive approach to an approach that incorporates deductive instruction. This study is an integral component of a program of research focused on identifying effective and efficient interventions for children with language impairment. It is predicted that a combined deductive-inductive (D-I) approach will positively engage children's metacognitive processing skills and will lead to greater grammatical learning by children with PLD than an inductive-only (I-O) approach. Guided by strong preliminary data, this prediction will be tested through four specific aims: (a) to determine if a D-I approach is more efficacious than an I-O approach when teaching novel grammatical forms; (b) to determine whether gains made following D-I instruction are maintained over time; (c) to determine whether a D-I approach is differentially effective when teaching three novel grammatical forms; and (d) to determine if a D-I approach is differentially effective at teaching children with PLD who do and do not have significant language comprehension deficits. To address these aims, 60 5- to 7-year old children with PLD will be randomly assigned to either a D-I or I-O treatment. Participants in both groups will have the opportunity to learn three novel grammatical inflections. Learning will be assessed in terms of accuracy and response times' immediately following and 1-week post- treatment. To date, the primary emphasis on language intervention has been on inductive approaches; there- fore, the proposed evaluation of an alternative intervention approach represents an innovative shift in current clinical practice. The incorporation of deductive approaches may prove to positively impact the long-term out- comes of children with PLD and result in a transformation in clinical services.