The effect of intervention on the free-play experience for mothers and their infants with developmental delay and cerebral palsy. Social interaction between parents and babies: validation of an intervention procedure. The effect of aided language stimulation on vocabulary acquisition in children with little or no functional speech. Programming "loose training" as a strategy to facilitate language generalization. Effects of it takes two to talk--the hanen program for parents of preschool children with cerebral palsy: findings from an exploratory study. Intensive speech and language therapy for older children with cerebral palsy: a systems approach. In-service training for schools on augmentative and alternative communication. Evaluating parent use of functional communication training to replace and enhance prelinguistic behaviours in six children with developmental and physical disabilities. Nonvocal language acquisition in adolescents with severe physical disabilities: Bliss symbol versus iconic stimulus formats.
An intervention study designed to investigate the effects of one hour of maternal and infant behavior was conducted using experimental and control groups of mothers and their infants with cerebral palsy. Ten mother-infant pairs were in each group; infants ranged in age from 8-32 months. Infants of mothers in the control group received one hour of NDT-based occupational therapy. Two-factor repeated measures analysis of variance with repeated measures of the second factor indicated that the nonverbal instruction methods were significantly more successful in modifying maternal and infant behavior than were the verbal instruction methods. Implications of the results for intervention programs and future research were discussed. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a set of intervention procedures developed as part of a parent-infant interaction model from a larger research study on social interaction between parents and their handicapped infants. Data is presented for three dyads, selected to illustrate the applicability of the procedures under a variety of different conditions including ages of the babies, target behaviours chosen and intervention situations. Results indicated that interactions could be altered through direct intervention with the mothers. The procedures used in the Social Interaction Assessment and Intervention model thus seem to be valid for bringing about change in interactions in dyads with a variety of interactive problems, in at least two different types of situations, and with babies differing widely in age and extent of delay. To describe the nature and frequency of the aided language stimulation program and determine the effects of a 3-week-long aided language stimulation program on the vocabulary acquisition skills of children with little or no functional speech (LNFS).
                Four children participated in this single-subject, multiple-probe study across activities. The aided language stimulation program comprised 3 activities: arts and crafts, food preparation, and story time activity. Each activity was repeated over the duration of 5 subsequent sessions. Eight target vocabulary items were taught within each activity. The acquisition of all 24 target items was probed throughout the duration of the 3-week intervention period.
                The frequency and nature of the aided language stimulation provided met the criterion of being used 70% of the time and providing aided language stimulation with an 80:20 ratio of statements to questions. The results indicated that all 4 participants acquired the target vocabulary items. There were, however, variations in the rate of acquisition.
                This study explores the impact of aided language stimulation on vocabulary acquisition in children. The most important clinical implication of this study is that a 3-week intervention program in aided language stimulation was sufficient to facilitate the comprehension of at least 24 vocabulary items in 4 children with LNFS. This study investigated the generalization of spontaneous complex language behavior across a nontraining setting and the durability of generalization as a result of programming and "loose training" strategy. A within-subject, across-behaviors multiple-baseline design was used to examine the performance of two moderately retarded students in the use of is/are across three syntactic structures (i.e., "wh" questions, "yes/no" reversal questions, and statements). The language training procedure used in this study represented a functional example of programming "loose training." The procedure involved conducting concurrent language training within the context of an academic training task, and establishing a functional reduction in stimulus control by permitting the student to initiate a language response based on a wide array of naturally occurring stimulus events. Concurrent probes were conducted in the free play setting to assess the immediate generalization and the durability of the language behaviors. The results demonstrated that "loose training" was effective in establishing a specific set of language responses with the participants of this investigation. Further, both students demonstrated spontaneous use of the language behavior in the free play generalization setting and a trend was clearly evident for generalization to continue across time. Thus, the methods used appear to be successful for training the use of is/are in three syntactic structures. To investigate whether It Takes Two to Talk-The Hanen Program for Parents of Preschool Children With Cerebral Palsy is associated with change in interaction between children who have motor disorders and their parents.
                Eleven children aged 19-36 months who had nonprogressive motor disorders that affected their communication, and their mothers, were observed 4 months and 1 month before mothers attended It Takes Two to Talk training, and 1 month and 4 months after its completion.
                Interaction patterns were stable prior to training. After training, mothers initiated less and produced more responses and fewer requests. Children produced more initiations, as well as more requests and provisions of information, after training. Mothers' linguistic input did not change in amount or complexity. Changes were maintained 4 months later. Mothers' views of parenting did not change.
                It Takes Two to Talk may be associated with positive communication change for this group. Further investigation of its clinical effectiveness is warranted. To investigate whether speech therapy using a speech systems approach to controlling breath support, phonation, and speech rate can increase the speech intelligibility of children with dysarthria and cerebral palsy (CP).
                Sixteen children with dysarthria and CP participated in a modified time series design. Group characteristics were as follows: seven males, nine females; age range 12 to 18 years (mean 14y, SD 2); CP type: nine spastic, two dyskinetic, four mixed, one Worster-Drought; Gross Motor Function Classification System levels range I to V (median IV). Children received three 30- to 45-minute sessions of individual therapy per week for 6 weeks. Intelligibility in single words and connected speech was compared across four points: 1 week and 6 weeks before therapy, and 1 week and 6 weeks after its completion. Three familiar listeners and three unfamiliar listeners scored each recording. Mean percentage intelligibility was compared using general linear modelling techniques.
                After treatment, familiar listeners understood 14.7% more single words and 12.1% more words in connected speech. Unfamiliar listeners understood 15% more single words and 15.9% more words in connected speech after therapy.
                Therapy was associated with increases in speech intelligibility. Effects of the therapy should be investigated further, in an exploratory trial with younger children and in a randomized controlled trial. For children to progress in their use of augmentative communication systems, in-service training of staff in schools is required. This paper presents preliminary evaluation of a training package entitled 'My Turn to Speak'. Nineteen participants and 10 comparison staff were filmed before and after a five-session training workshop, interacting in the classroom in naturally occurring situations with a non-speaking physically disabled child. Significant improvements in the quality of adults' facilitation of the children's communication was discernible at follow-up, four months after completion of the training. However, teachers were found to alter their behaviour more quickly after training than non-teaching staff. The requirements for setting up successful multidisciplinary training are discussed. To evaluate parent use of functional communication training (FCT) to replace and enhance prelinguistic behaviours in six young children with developmental and physical disabilities.
                Initially, the communicative functions of the children's prelinguistic behaviours were assessed by parent interviews. Three communication functions were identified for each child and intervention goals to replace or enhance the child's existing prelinguistic behaviours were developed in consultation with parents. After a baseline phase, parents received training on implementation of FCT. Intervention was staggered across the three communicative functions in a multiple-probe design.
                Intervention was associated with increases in the replacement communication behaviour. Treatment gains were generally maintained at the monthly follow-ups.
                The results suggest that parents can use FCT to enhance communication skills in children with developmental and physical disabilities. This study compared training in two language systems for three severely handicapped, nonvocal adolescents: the Bliss symbol system and an iconic picture system. Following baseline, training and review trials were implemented using an alternating treatments design. Daily probes were conducted to assess maintenance, stimulus generalization, and response generalization, and data were collected on spontaneous usage of either language system throughout the school day. Results showed that students required approximately four times as many trials to acquire Bliss symbols as iconic pictures, and that students maintained a higher percentage of iconic pictures. Stimulus generalization occurred in both language systems, while the number of correct responses during responses generalization probes was much greater for the iconic system. Finally, students almost always showed more iconic responses than Bliss responses in daily spontaneous usage. These results suggest that an iconic system might be more readily spontaneous usage. These results suggest than an iconic system might be more readily acquired, maintained, and generalized to daily situations. Implications of these findings for the newly verbal person were discussed.
Firm evidence of the positive effects of SLT for children with cerebral palsy has not been demonstrated by this review. However, positive trends in communication change were shown. No change in practice is recommended from this updated review. Further research is needed to describe this client group, and its possible clinical subgroups, and the methods of treatment currently used in SLT. Research is also needed to investigate the effectiveness of new and established interventions and their acceptability to families. Rigour in research practice needs to be extended to enable firm associations between therapy and the communication change to be made. There are now sufficient data to develop randomised controlled studies of dysarthria interventions and group parent training programmes. Such research is urgently needed to ensure clinically effective provision for this group of children, who are at severe risk of social and educational exclusion.