Project Procedure Manual: Interventions for the Treatment of Developmental Phonological Disorder in Francophone Children (Rvachew & Brosseau-Lapré, 2015)
posted on 2015-11-01, 00:00authored bySusan Rvachew, Françoise Brosseau-Lapré
Purpose This study was designed to test the relative efficacy of different combinations of intervention approaches when targeting speech production accuracy and phonological awareness skills. All children received individual speech therapy, a home program, and a small-group phonological awareness intervention.
Method Sixty-five 4-year-olds with a developmental phonological disorder received these intervention components in different combinations over 12 weeks, resulting in 4 groups: output-oriented individual intervention and articulation practice home program, output-oriented individual intervention and dialogic reading home program, input-oriented individual intervention and articulation practice home program, and input-oriented individual intervention and dialogic reading home program.
Results A significant interaction of the individual treatment condition and the home program condition was observed for 2 outcome measures: targeted feature match (which reflected changes in speech production accuracy for features and word shape structures that were targeted in therapy) and explicit phonological awareness skills.
Conclusion In this context, in which the children received a brief period of direct therapy and a home program component provided sequentially, the most effective strategy was to teach the parents to use treatment procedures at home that were congruent with the direct therapy component.
Funding
These data arise from the project Essai Clinique sur les Interventions Phonologique, which was supported by a Standard Research Grant to the first author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Bourse de Formation de Doctorat to the second author from the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé. We are also indebted to the Montréal Children's Hospital and the Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music for the use of their facilities. We thank the children and their parents who participated in the research project as well as the speech-language pathologists from the Montréal Children's Hospital who referred them to the project. The authors acknowledge the numerous research assistants and student volunteers who assisted with data collection and processing: Tara Commandeur, Joelle Chagnon, Elizabeth Christe, Catherine Clémence, Raphaelle Curis, Claudine Joncas, Annie Ladouceur, Patrizia Mazzocca, Rachel Morasse, Mahchid Namazzi, Stéphanie Arcand, Geneviève Beauregard-Paultre, Elisa Bucarel, Hannah Jacobs, Annie Jacques, Amanda Langdon, Marianne Paul, Daniel Phelan, Anit Saini, and Hope Valeriote