Use of a cueing aid with children with word finding difficulties

This project investigated the use of an aid which turned letters to sounds, with children with word finding problems. The computerised aid has been shown to be successful in improving word finding in adults with acquired aphasia (see project: use of a cueing aid in therapy with adults with anomia). In addition, other interventions used with adults with language impairments have been successfully transferred to children with language problems and vica-versa.

Five children were included in this study (age 6 to 10 years), they differed widely from one another in terms of their language development and non-verbal abilities. Research and functional items were included for each child. Therapy took place once a week for 6 weeks in the child's school. All the children showed significant improvement in naming intervention items after therapy. There was no significant change on untreated items for the individual children, but this did reach significance for the group. The effects maintained at follow-up half a term later. There was some positive feedback from children, their families, teachers and speech and language therapists. A similar pattern of outcome for the different children made it impossible to relate the results to individual language profiles but suggests the intervention for word finding may be effective in the context of a variety of other language and learning difficulties The findings can be understood in relation to an interactive model of speech production.

Best, W. (2005) An investigation of a new intervention for children with word finding problems. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, Vol 40 No 3 279-318