Hepburn Internship in Language Intervention

1. Hepburn Internship in Language Intervention By Emma Cohan http://news.uns.purdue.edu/images/+2007/preschool-language.jpg

2. What is Language Delay/ Impairment in Children? • Language delay: excludes any other primary condition with deficits in comprehension (receptive type), production (expressive type), or both (mixed type) • Characteristics include language deficits in semantics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics (also some neurocognitive “soft signs” and socio-behavioral deficits typically) • The types norm referenced standards used to diagnose late talking and SLI source of debate. General agreement upon “language endowment spectrum”

3. Theories of Etiology in Language Impairment • Familial: genetic predisposition and child’s conversational environment • **Perceptual: accounts for SLI as an auditory processing problem in discriminating and sequencing sounds resulting in a limited processing capacity • Linguistic Deficit: accounts for SLI as a problem in the linguistic mechanism of language acquisition (such as in universal grammar) • Normal Distribution: accounts for SLI as being the low end of the language endowment spectrum

4. The areas of language impairment Form Content Use

5. What is the theory behind intervention? • Developmental vs. Functional Approach • Drill-Play • Reinforcement • Specific Techniques: Focused stimulation, Expansion/Extension, Modify Linguistic Input, Joint Routines/Scripts, Joint Book Reading

6. Description of Sites • For my internship I divided the day at two field sites: • Mornings spent as an assistant teacher at the Language Enrichment Preschool Program camp run out of the Thorne School • Afternoons spent modeling the language stimulation activities learned at LEPP for individual or small groups of targeted children at the Montgomery Early Learning Center of Norristown

7. A day in the life: LEPP • A morning spread of activities including craft and symbolic play set ups related to our story time theme, plus fine motor toys, art, and sensory stimulation • Circle time story and child presentation • Dramatic, symbolic play interspersed with individual speech therapy • Song time • Snack and Outdoor play

8. A day in the life: MELC • From three classes,teachers selected students known to have language problems ranging from slight articulation problems, to very little comprehensible language (often including exposure to a different primary language than English at home) • Each day I would arrive with a stack of games ranging from sequential narrative puzzles to vocabulary building bingo and specific language processes I planned to target • A lot of trial and error, wide range of childrens’ language abilities challenging

9. What I have come away with from this internship? • A much greater academic and practical understanding of language processes and the complex ways in which they can be impaired • A first hand understanding of the intervention side of an important psychological domain • Confidence in myself as a force for improving the lives of others • The joy of spending my summer interacting with such wonderful children!

10. Sources • Leonard, L. B. (2009). Is Expressive Language Disorder an Accurate Diagnostic Category? American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18, 115-123. • Paul, Rhea (Ed.)(2007). Language Disorders from a Developmental Perspective: Essays in Honor of Robin S. Chapman. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. • Rescorla, L. (2009). Age 17 Language and Reading Outcomes in Late-Talking Toddlers: Support for a Dimensional Perspective on Language Delay. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52, 16-30. • Rescorla, Leslie A., Lee, Eliza C.“Chapter 1: Language Impairment in Young Children” in Layton, T., Crais, E., & Watson, L. (2000). Handbook of Early Language Impairment in Children: Nature. Albany: Delmar. • Roseberry-McKibbin, C. (2006). Language Disorders in Children: A Multicultural and Case Perspective. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.