The Use of Music Therapy to Support Speech and Expressive Language Development for Pre-School Children with Special Needs

<p>Client-centred music therapy with individual pre-school children, involving playful but focused songs, behaviours and instrumental play, can enhance their speech and expressive language development. Four constructs were inductively created using the principles of grounded theory to represent how music therapy was used to support speech and expressive language development for pre-school children with special needs. Secondary analysis was undertaken of qualitative data drawn from usual clinical practice including clinical notes, reflective journal, audiovisual recordings, and notes from communications regarding two children from a student music therapist's caseload at a specialist centre in New Zealand. A case vignette is presented to illustrate these four meaningful constructs of individual music therapy and concepts that constitute each are presented, along with sample quotations from the data, and are theoretically integrated within wider music therapy literature. A tree model was used to capture these findings, which further suggested 'playfulness' may be a central aspect of the work. Implications for my developing and future clinical practice of music therapy are discussed, along with directions indicated for future research.</p>

The Use of Music Therapy to Support Speech and Expressive Language Development for Pre-School Children with Special Needs

<p>Client-centred music therapy with individual pre-school children, involving playful but focused songs, behaviours and instrumental play, can enhance their speech and expressive language development. Four constructs were inductively created using the principles of grounded theory to represent how music therapy was used to support speech and expressive language development for pre-school children with special needs. Secondary analysis was undertaken of qualitative data drawn from usual clinical practice including clinical notes, reflective journal, audiovisual recordings, and notes from communications regarding two children from a student music therapist's caseload at a specialist centre in New Zealand. A case vignette is presented to illustrate these four meaningful constructs of individual music therapy and concepts that constitute each are presented, along with sample quotations from the data, and are theoretically integrated within wider music therapy literature. A tree model was used to capture these findings, which further suggested 'playfulness' may be a central aspect of the work. Implications for my developing and future clinical practice of music therapy are discussed, along with directions indicated for future research.</p>

Expressive language development in ASD context- Case Study

This paper aims to highlight a way of approach for a child with ASD in the field of speech therapy alone, despite the unfavorable forecast (prognosis). The structure of the paper consists of two main parts: a theoretical one regarding the diagnosis and its involvement in the field of language development, and in the second part will be presented a case study carried out over a period of 6 months and with possible future opportunities progress. It is well known that most children with ADS have major language deficiencies coupled with their lack of social skills which worsens (accentuates) the course of further development and, therefore, early intervention can substantially reduce their disabilities. But, in this case study, it is presented a thirteen-year-old boy with ADS and its total absence (lack) of expressive language although the receptive language is at a pretty good level. The main goal of the program was to develop, somehow, (at first hand) first of all, a phonological basis in order to establish a pragmatic (functional) verbal communication. It is known that children with ADS are quite difficult to engage in activities that require focused attention and proper response to multiple requests and what was really remarkable and quite unusual, in the same time, is his full cooperation that led to significant results that will help him in the future.

Toward Preventing Speech and Language Disorders of Known Genetic Origin: First Post-Intervention Results of Babble Boot Camp in Children With Classic Galactosemia

Purpose Babble Boot Camp (BBC) is a package of proactive activities and routines designed to prevent speech and language disorders in infants at predictable risk. It is implemented via parent training and currently undergoing clinical trial in children with a newborn diagnosis of classic galactosemia (CG), a metabolic disease with high risk of speech and language disorders. The purpose of this study is to provide updates to a previous pilot study and to present the first set of post-intervention results. Method The intervention and data collection occurred during child ages < 6–24 months, with follow-up assessments of speech and language at ages 2.5 and 3.5 years. Treatment targets included earliest vocalization rates, babble complexity, speech production accuracy, and vocabulary and syntactic growth. The oldest 15 children with CG (including three untreated controls) completed the first set of follow-up assessments. Aggregate data up to 10 months were available for 17 treated children with CG, six untreated children with CG, and six typical controls. Results At ages 7–9 months, babbling complexity, as measured with mean babbling level, was higher in the treated children with CG than in the untreated children with CG and the typical controls. Prior to 24 months of age, the treated children with CG had greater expressive but not receptive vocabulary sizes than an untreated control. Follow-up testing showed typical language scores for all 12 treated children with CG and typical articulation scores for 11 of these, whereas one of three untreated children with CG had low articulation and expressive language scores. Conclusions The BBC appears to be a viable intervention to support the speech and expressive language development of children with GC. Future studies will evaluate the relative contributions of the earliest and later BBC components to outcomes.

Characteristics of Functional Speech Sound Disorders in Korean Children

Purpose: A speech sound disorder (SSD) is defined as the presence of a problem with articulation and phonological processes in a child. This study analyzed the clinical characteristics of Korean patients with functional SSDs without any neuromuscular abnormalities. Methods: The medical records of patients aged 36 to 72 months old who were diagnosed with SSDs were retrospectively reviewed. SSD patients who scored less than 85 in the U-Tap test were divided into two groups according to their receptive language scores on the PRES/SELSI. Results: Sixty-seven percent of patients with language impairment (LI) who were diagnosed with an SSD initially visited the hospital for a delay in language development (n=18, 66.7%). Among children with only an SSD, 26.7% (n=8) of the patients recognized it as a language developmental problem. All SSD patients had substitution errors in the onset of initial syllables (SSD, SSD+LI: 100%; typical development [TD]: 37.5%). Of particular note, SSD children with LI had more omission errors (55.6%) than patients with SSD only (16.7%). SSD patients had higher error rates than TD children in all consonants except for the glottal element (P<0.01). The lower the U-Tap score of SSD patients, the lower their expressive language score (P<0.001). Conclusion: A high percentage of children with SSD initially visited the hospital for the treatment of language development delays. Articulation tests are essential for children who suffer from language delay. Furthermore, since incorrect articulation can lead to delays in expressive language development, early interventions should be considered.

Influence of Visual Support Media in Developing Expressive Language and Logical Thinking of Children Aged 4-5 Years in Inclusion Kindergarten Sidoarjo District

The research objectives were to (1) examine the effect of visual support media on the development of expressive language and logical thinking of children aged 4-5 years in inclusion kindergarten; (2) examining the effect of visual support media on the development of language expression and logical thinking in children aged 4-5 years in inclusive kindergartens; Type and quantitative research design with a quasi-experimental design type of non-equivalent control group. The sample used in the study was Kindergarden Diti School class A1 with 15 students and class A2 with 10 students as the experimental class; and TK Batik class A1 15 students and class A2 10 students as the control class. Data collection techniques using tests and observations. Data analysis techniques used analysis of variance (ANOVA) and MANOVA. The results showed that the SPSS output obtained a significance probability value <0.05, so it could be concluded that Ho was rejected and H1 was accepted, meaning (1) there was a significant influence between visual support media on expressive language development and logical thinking in children aged 4-5 years in Inclusion Kindergarten. Future research is expected to test media and educational aids that can develop expressive language and logical thinking.

Content Words in Child-Directed Speech of Mothers Toward Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Purpose Our study aimed to analyze the characteristics of content word usage in mother's child-directed speech ( CDS) toward children with autism spectrum disorder compared to mother's CDS toward typically developing children. Method We analyzed the lexical characteristics of CDS of mothers of children with autism (16 dyads) and compared them from a language developmental perspective to mothers of 20 typical children at the same level of expressive language development. Results Results suggest that mothers of children with autism use equal amounts of content words at the same language level, but the content consists of significantly more concrete nouns and active verbs and rarely the use of abstract nouns, stative verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Conclusion This study suggests that professionals and parents of children with autism should be aware of the importance of varying their language use of content words.

Language development in Iranian children with epilepsy

Background: Epilepsy is the most common pediatric neurologic disease accompanying with psychosocial delays causing a child’s isolation from the society. Developmental language delays are among the most common complaints of children with epilepsy. In the current study, verbal skills and expressive and receptive language development have been assessed in patients with epilepsy and compared with age-matched normal group. Methods: This case-control study was conducted on 78 2-5-year-old children with epilepsy and 78 age-matched normal children referred to the outpatient clinic of Imam Reza affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran, in 2017-2018. Demographic information of cases (age, age of onset, type of seizure, and number of consumed remedies) and controls was gathered. In order to assess study population’s verbal, receptive, and expressive language development, Newsha growth measurement test, a validated Persian version of verbal language development questionnaire, was utilized. Results: Comparison of children with epilepsy with normal controls showed a significant difference in spoken, expressive, and receptive language development between children with epilepsy and normal peers (P < 0.05). Spoken and receptive language developments were significantly in association with earlier age of onset, higher number of remedies received for seizure control, generalized type of seizures, and lacking of seizure control (P < 0.05). Expressive language development showed no association with type and control of seizures (P > 0.05) but had significant association with age of onset of epilepsy and number of remedies (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Assessment of verbal language development aspects among children with epilepsy showed a higher rate of delay among these children as compared with normal age-matched ones. Moreover, earlier age of onset, generalized type of seizures, higher number of consumed remedies, and poor seizure control were accompanied with higher and more severe speech and language delay.