Parent-implemented Early Intervention for Young Children with Cleft Palate

Ha, Seunghee

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2011;16(4): 460-477.

Seunghee Ha^`

하승희(Seunghee Ha)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
Young children with cleft palate have a high risk of speech-language impairment due to innate anomalies of the oral mechanism, which indicate the need for early intervention for speech impairment. The purpose of the present study was to explore the effectiveness of a parent-implemented early intervention on parents’ interaction styles and children’s speech-language development.
Methods
Eleven pairs of mothers and children between 12 and 36 months of age participated in the present study. After the mothers attended parent training that focused on language stimulation skills and communication facilitation strategies, parent-implemented intervention was performed in the children’s home for three months through regular monitoring, coaching and counseling. Parents’ interaction styles and children’s speech-language characteristics were compared pre- and post-intervention tests to investigate the effectiveness of a parent-implemented early intervention.
Results
The number of different words in the mothers’ utterances significantly decreased, and their responsiveness to children’s communication acts significantly increased. Mothers showed more frequent uses of linguistic mapping, corrective feedback, linguistic extension and expansion among subcategories of responsiveness after the intervention. Rating scores on maternal use of communication facilitation skills indicated that mothers more consistently used the learned skills when interacting with their children following the parent training. Among child speech-language measures, language age of SELSI, number of expressive words, percentage of intelligible speech, consonant inventory and number of different syllable structures significantly increased after the intervention.
Discussion & Conclusion
The results of the present study support the effectiveness of parent-implemented early intervention on positive changes of parents’ interaction styles and children’s speech-language development.