I was very excited to see an article about word finding in children reviewed in The Informed SLP’s February 27 newsletter.* “Understanding differing outcomes from semantic and phonological interventions with children with word-finding difficulties: A group and case series study,” written by Best, W., Hughes, I., Masterson, J., Thomas, M., S. C., Howard, D., Kapikian,A., & Shobbrook, K.(2021). The reviewer, Mollee Sultani, provided an excellent summary of the research, and I encourage you to read it. The entire article appeared in the February, 2021 issue of the scientific journal Cortex.
The researchers addressed a question I have asked myself many times as I work with children: which intervention is most effective? The study compared the use of semantic word webs with the use of phonological word webs. This carefully designed, randomized control trial looked at 20 children aged 6 to 8 in a mainstream school. All the children were presented with both types of treatment.
Two rounds of treatment were presented. One asked the children to complete phonological word webs (e.g., “What does it rhyme with? What sound does it start with?”), the other asked the children to complete semantic word webs (“What does it look like? What do you do with it?”). Among treated words, the semantic intervention resulted in a gain of almost twice as many items as the phonological intervention. However, a closer look at individual children showed that children who had difficulty with either semantic or phonological abilities gained the most from the intervention that matched their area of weakness. In other words, the children with semantic weakness gained most from semantic word webs. The children with phonological weakness gained most from phonological word webs. The most effective intervention depended on the child’s own language profile.
An important point made in the conclusion of the Cortex article stated that “the approach involves encouraging active participation so that children produce or choose features of words and in later sessions reflect on what helps them retrieve words.” The authors noted that the children didn’t generalize their skills to words that had not been included in the treatment. That makes our choice of words presented in therapy even more important. We need to choose words that are meaningful to the individual – either academically or personally. I look forward to more research informing SLPs of best practice.
Sources:
“Understanding differing outcomes from semantic and phonological interventions with children with word-finding difficulties: A group and case series study,” written by Best, W., Hughes, I., Masterson, J., Thomas, M., S. C., Howard, D., Kapikian,A., & Shobbrook, K.(2021). Cortex, 2021
*The Informed SLP newsletter, available at TheInformedSLP.com, February 27, 2021, published by Dr. Meredith Poore Harold, PhD, CCC-SLP. Cortex article reviewed by Mollee Sultani, CCC-SLP.