Investigating the efficacy of a receptive language intervention with a 6-year-old-boy with primary language impairment: a pilot study

Background: There is currently a significant gap in the literature on speech and language therapy interventions in terms of their effectiveness in treating school-age children with receptive language difficulties. Objectives: This was a pilot study that set out to investigate (a) Whether an individually tailored intervention can alleviate oral language comprehension difficulties for a 6-year old boy, JC, with primary language impairment and (b) The effect of an evidence based metalinguistic intervention on his oral language comprehension. Method: Components of oral language comprehension were measured using standardised assessment and criterion referenced assessment. A controlled single subject design with repeated measures was employed with a selection of criterion referenced probes of treated and untreated grammatical structures. Therapy encompassed the following elements: 1) teaching of concepts embedded within metacognitive strategies including rehearsal and comprehension monitoring, 2) use of a metalinguistic approach to explicitly teach syntactic rules. Results: There was no significant improvement in oral language comprehension on any measure. Conclusions: Data should be interpreted in the light of the fact that the number of treatment sessions delivered was limited. In-session data suggests that JC had grasped the basics of the metalinguistic approach and was ready to move on to learning specific structures using the coding system. The study also provides some valuable qualitative information about the nature of oral language comprehension difficulties associated with a profile such as JC’s.