Keywords

developmental language disorder, Down syndrome, morphosyntax, intervention

Abstract

Purpose: Selecting targets for morphosyntactic intervention is a critical compo-nent of treatment planning. The complexity approach suggests that, by treating a complex morphosyntactic target, improvements will occur for the treated structure and for related, simpler structures. This study evaluated the efficacy of the complexity approach for treating morphosyntactic deficits by targeting a complex BE verb question structure for children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and children with Down syndrome (DS) and observing its impact on treated and untreated BE verb structures. We also explored whether etiology impacted our participants’ treatment responses.

Method: Three participants with DLD and three with DS received treatment for the BE verb question structure in the context of a single-case multiple-baseline design across participants. Accuracy of production for the treated structure and untreated BE verb structures was measured across baseline, treatment, and posttreatment phases.

Results: Treatment of the complex BE verb question structure resulted in change on the treated structure for three participants (i.e., two with DLD and one with DS). Generalization of treatment to untreated, related BE verb struc-tures occurred for all six participants. Outcomes indicated participants from both etiologies benefited from treatment.

Conclusions: This study provides evidence supporting the use of a complexity-based approach for selecting morphosyntactic treatment targets for children with DLD and children with DS. Additional research is needed to identify spe-cific characteristics that may influence individual treatment responses.

Original Publication Citation

Hannig Russell, K. M., Wambaugh, J. L., Davis, J. L., & Redmond, S. M. (2024). Efficacy of complexity-based target selection for treating morphosyntactic deficits in children with DLD and children with Down syndrome. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 33(2), 2939-2971. https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_AJSLP-24-00171

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2024-11-01

Publisher

American Journal of Speech Language Pathology

Language

English

College

David O. McKay School of Education

Department

Communication Disorders

University Standing at Time of Publication

Assistant Professor

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