Effectiveness of the Language Intervention Programme for Preschool Children.

OBJECTIVE: This paper investigates the effectiveness of the Language Intervention Programme for the treatment of 14 preschool-aged children with primary language impairment.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: We used a waiting list control design, in which half the sample (7 children) received immediate intervention with the Language Intervention Programme, whereas the remaining children received treatment after a 4-week delay. The intervention consisted of 8 individual biweekly sessions. Outcome measures of language ability (receptive semantic and morphosyntactic, expressive semantic and morphosyntactic, and metalinguistic) were taken before and after intervention.

RESULTS: After 4 weeks of intervention, the experimental group showed significant improvements in language (receptive, expressive and metalinguistic skills), but no differences were found for those in the waiting control group. After 4 weeks of intervention for the control group, significant progress in language was also observed.

CONCLUSION: The Language Intervention Programme was found to be effective in treating language skills of children with language impairment, providing clinical evidence for speech and language therapists to employ this programme for the treatment of preschool children with language disorders.