Editor's Note: The content of this article was published by Pearson in the journal EBP Briefs. It is offered for CEUs through SpeechPathology.com in cooperation with Pearson. The following supplemental material is available for download: Table 1: Descriptions and Outcomes of Research Studies; Table 2: Assessment of Methodological Study Quality, Based on Criteria (Gillam & Gillam, 2006).
Learning Objectives
- After this course, participants will be able to identify the clinical question for an example case scenario.
- After this course, participants will be able to list relevant search criteria for retrieving evidence related to the clinical question.
- After this course, participants will be able to describe a clinical decision based on the evidence analysis.
Clinical Scenario
Tim is a 10-year-old, fourth-grade boy who has completed a language and literacy assessment with his school’s multi- disciplinary team. Since first grade, Tim has received speech and language services for oral syntax and semantics, and special education services for reading. Tim’s most recent assessment revealed that he has deficits in semantics, reading decoding, reading comprehension, writing, and spelling. The speech- language pathologist (SLP) found that Tim’s phonological awareness skills and morphological awareness skills were below what is expected of a child his age. Specifically, Tim had difficulty segmenting phonemes. When he was administered a morpheme generation task in which he was given a base word (e.g., explode) and was asked to use this word to fill in a sentence (e.g. The loud sound was caused by the . explosion), he was not able to generate an appropriate word derivative (e.g., explode – explosion).
Given this assessment picture, the SLP is faced with the task of determining appropriate treatment that will make the biggest impact on Tim’s academic success and of coordinating these services with the other members on the multi-disciplinary team. She recently heard of using multiple-linguistic word study as a way to facilitate the language components of morphological awareness and phonological awareness, and is interested in determining whether such an approach may help Tim in his phonological, morphological, semantic, and literacy success.
Before we address Tim’s specific case, let’s take a brief look at what is meant by a multiple-linguistic word-study approach, define the underlying language principles of such an approach, and briefly summarize the research of each linguistic principle in relationship to language and literacy achievement.
Multiple-Linguistic Word Study Defined
Word study, specifically the linguistic analysis and focus on spelling, may provide a valuable language-based tool for the SLP when assessing and treating children with language-literacy deficits (LLD). Spelling is a language-based skill (Bailet, 2004) and the awareness of sounds in words (phonological awareness), knowledge of the spelling patterns in words (orthographic knowledge), and understanding of relationships among base words and their inflectional and derivational forms (morphological awareness) all influence spelling acquisition, vocabulary, reading decoding, reading comprehension, and writing development (Apel, Masterson, & Neissen, 2004; Bourassa & Treiman, 2001). A developmental treatment approach that incorporates spelling and nurtures these multiple linguistic factors may be an effective way to facilitate language and literacy success for children with LLD.