Intervention for mixed receptive-expressive language impairment : a review

Children with receptive-expressive language impairment (RELI), also referred to as 'receptive language disorder' or 'mixed receptive-expressive disorder',2 form a subset of those with speech, language, and communication needs who commonly have problems understanding both spoken and written language; they have particular difficulties in comprehending vocabulary and grammar and inferring meaning. They will have problems with expressive language and some will also have difficulties in pragmatics, i.e. the use of language in social contexts

A Tale of Two Studies on Auditory Training in Children: A Response to the Claim that ‘Discrimination Training of Phonemic Contrasts Enhances Phonological Processing in Mainstream School Children’ by Moore, Rosenberg and Coleman (2005)

In a previous article, Moore, Rosenberg and Coleman (Brain and Language, 2005, 94, 72-85) reported evidence for significant improvements in phonological awareness in mainstream children following 6 h of exposure to a commercially available phoneme discrimination training programme, but not in a control group. In a follow-up study, we failed to replicate this finding, despite using an almost identical training programme (Halliday, Taylor, Millward, & Moore, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2012, 55, 168-181). This paper directly compares the methods and the results of the two studies, in an effort to explain the discrepant findings. It reports that the trained group in Moore et al. (2005) showed significantly greater improvements in phonological awareness following training than the trained group in Halliday et al. (2012). However, the control group in Halliday et al. (2012) showed significantly greater improvements in phonological awareness than the control group in Moore et al. (2005). The paper concludes that differences in the randomization, blinding, experimenter familiarity and treatment of trained and control groups contributed to the different outcomes of the two studies. The results indicate that a plethora of factors can contribute to training effects and highlight the importance of well-designed randomized controlled trials in assessing the efficacy of a given intervention. © 2014 The Authors. Dyslexia published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Effects of computer-based intervention through acoustically modified speech (Fast ForWord) in severe mixed receptive-expressive language impairment : outcomes from a randomized controlled trial

Seventy-seven children between the ages of 6 and 10 years, with severe mixed receptive-expressive specific language impairment (SLI), participated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Fast ForWord (FFW; Scientific Learning Corporation, 1997, 2001). FFW is a computer-based intervention for treating SLI using acoustically enhanced speech stimuli. These stimuli are modified to exaggerate their time and intensity properties as part of an adaptive training process. All children who participated in the RCT maintained their regular speech and language therapy and school regime throughout the trial. Standardized measures of receptive and expressive language were used to assess performance at baseline and to measure outcome from treatment at 9 weeks and 6 months. Children were allocated to 1 of 3 groups. Group A (n=23) received the FFWintervention as a home-based therapy for 6 weeks. Group B (n=27) received commercially available computer-based activities designed to promote language as a control for computer games exposure. Group C (n=27) received no additional study intervention. Each group made significant gains in language scores, but there was no additional effect for either computer intervention. Thus, the findings from this RCT do not support the efficacy of FFW as an intervention for children with severe mixed receptive-expressive SLI