Defense Date

7-2-2013

Graduation Date

Summer 2013

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

thesis

Degree Name

MS

Department

Speech-Language Pathology (SLP)

School

Rangos School of Health Sciences

Committee Chair

Diane Williams

Committee Member

Lori Marra

Committee Member

Heather Rusiewicz

Keywords

Activities of daily living, Dialogic book reading, Down syndrome, Moderate to severe communication impairments, Procedural sequence, Scripts

Abstract

Even though children with moderate to severe communication impairments develop some spoken language, they have difficulty using multiple utterances that are connected by a unitary thought or discourse. Dialogic reading and scripting interventions have previously been shown to be separately effective in increasing the semantic and syntactic skills of children with language impairments. This single-subject study evaluated the use of an intervention that incorporated elements of both of these approaches, using adapted books that included sequenced activities of daily living, to increase the use of procedural discourse by a twelve-year-old child with Down syndrome. The intervention was successful in increasing the child's ability to produce coherent multi-word utterances and the number of steps to describe procedural sequences. The child's number of total words and number of different words in the context of the activities also increased. Gains were still evident 5 months post-treatment with an unfamiliar communication partner.

Format

PDF

Language

English

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