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A diminished presence of sentence complexity (sentences containing more than one clause) is a core feature of pediatric language disorders. This diminished facility can impact all language modalities: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Nevertheless, intervention studies are scarce. This project used a multiple baseline across behaviors single-subject design to measure the effectiveness of an intervention protocol for improving complex language abilities. Five participants (ages 10 through 16) with language-learning disorders were taught to identify, generate, and manipulate three types of complex sentences (containing adverbial, relative, and object complement clauses) in both single-sentence and text-level activities using both explicit and implicit teaching strategies. Each sentence type was taught over 6 consecutive sessions for a total of 18 treatment sessions. Three types of outcome measures included (1) probes on untaught stimulus items, (2) pre- and post-treatment performance on broad-based language assessments, and (3) records of performance during each session. Results of this study will help the investigators refine the treatment protocol for a larger-scale study. |
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