Cognate therapy for developmental language dis-orders (DLDs) in multilingual settings
Date Issued
November 10, 2017
Author(s)
Abstract
Authors
Maria Kambanaros, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, School of Health Sciences, Cyprus
University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus
Background
Clinicians globally recognise as exceptionally challenging the development of effective intervention
practices for bi- or multilingual children with DLDs. Therapy in both or all of an impaired child’s
languages is most often rarely possible. An alternative is to develop treatment protocols that facilitate
the transfer of therapy effects from a treated language to an untreated language.
Aims
The aim of this study is to explore whether cognates, words that share meaning and phonological
features across languages, could be used to boost lexical retrieval in the context of multilingual DLD.
Methods & Procedures
The participant is an 8.5-year-old girl diagnosed with SLI who showed a severe naming deficit in her
three spoken languages (Bulgarian, English, and Greek). She received training on cognates (n=20)
using a picture-based naming task in English only, three times a week, over a four-week period for 20
minutes each time. Phonological-based naming therapy was carried out using form-based strategies.
Results
There was a significant improvement during and immediately after intervention on cognate
performance in English that was maintained one month after intervention. Cognate production in
Bulgarian and Greek also improved during all phases of the intervention.
Conclusions & Implications
Cross-linguistic transfer effects were evident during and after treatment, and they were maintained
one month post treatment. Generalisation to non-treatment words was evident, only for English, the
treated language. The results suggest that cognates can be used successfully as a vocabulary training
strategy for multilingual children with DLDs with lasting effects.
Maria Kambanaros, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, School of Health Sciences, Cyprus
University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus
Background
Clinicians globally recognise as exceptionally challenging the development of effective intervention
practices for bi- or multilingual children with DLDs. Therapy in both or all of an impaired child’s
languages is most often rarely possible. An alternative is to develop treatment protocols that facilitate
the transfer of therapy effects from a treated language to an untreated language.
Aims
The aim of this study is to explore whether cognates, words that share meaning and phonological
features across languages, could be used to boost lexical retrieval in the context of multilingual DLD.
Methods & Procedures
The participant is an 8.5-year-old girl diagnosed with SLI who showed a severe naming deficit in her
three spoken languages (Bulgarian, English, and Greek). She received training on cognates (n=20)
using a picture-based naming task in English only, three times a week, over a four-week period for 20
minutes each time. Phonological-based naming therapy was carried out using form-based strategies.
Results
There was a significant improvement during and immediately after intervention on cognate
performance in English that was maintained one month after intervention. Cognate production in
Bulgarian and Greek also improved during all phases of the intervention.
Conclusions & Implications
Cross-linguistic transfer effects were evident during and after treatment, and they were maintained
one month post treatment. Generalisation to non-treatment words was evident, only for English, the
treated language. The results suggest that cognates can be used successfully as a vocabulary training
strategy for multilingual children with DLDs with lasting effects.
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