Intervention for a child with persisting speech and literacydifficulties: A psycholinguistic approach

Abstract

This paper illustrates a psycholinguistic approach to investigating children's speech and literacy difficulties by describing a “three-way” intervention plan for Jarrod, a 7 year old boy with unintelligible speech. First, a speech processing profile, a speech processing model and developmental phase models of speech and literacy were used to determine the relationship between his spoken and written language skills and what strengths could be built on in an intervention programme. Second, an analysis of the speech data was used to examine contributing factors to Jarrod's unintelligibility and what intervention targets might be selected to promote his speech, phonological awareness and literacy skills. Third, who might be involved in his intervention programme is suggested and what training might be needed to ensure appropriate interaction between child and listener in the therapy/teaching situation. A psycholinguistic approach can be helpful for children like Jarrod as it tackles speech and literacy simultaneously and has inbuilt assessments, monitoring and evaluation. The intervention can also be carried out by others and in groups. However, this approach needs to be combined with that derived from other perspectives (e.g. linguistic, educational, medical and psychosocial) to ensure a comprehensive management programme is carried out.

Keywords:

• Auditory discrimination
• phonological representation
• speech difficulties
• phonological awareness
• letter knowledge