Children over the age of 5 have a 1 in 15 chance of having a Developmental language disorder (DLD) and currently, there are more than 5.9 million children in the U.S. who have DLD. Children with DLD often experience difficulties with mastering grammatical morphemes – specifically verbal morphology – subjecting them to both poor academic performance and overall self esteem. To address this concern, we have been testing if using variability in Enhanced Conversational Recast (ECR) Therapy is an effective method of therapy for this population. ECR Therapy is when a clinician responds to a child’s words (or utterances) and adds new information while simultaneously continuing the basic meaning expressed by the child. To that end, we have found that children may still benefit from this therapy regardless if their utterances are correct or not. Although data related to this study is still being collected and analyzed, the use of variability in ECR Therapy has promise to be an effective means of intervention for individuals in the DLD population.

Purpose: The development of pointing skills is a critical component of communication between infants and caregivers prior to the onset of first words. Infant pointing serves many functions, including making needs and wants known, commenting, sharing information, asking questions, disagreeing and exclaiming, both alone and in combination with other forms of communication. Infants with developmental delays often struggle with development of pointing skills, which impacts ability to eventually communicate verbally. As such, the purpose of this systematic review is to identify the most effective strategies caregivers can use to facilitate pointing skills in infants with developmental delays. Method: A systematic review of the literature was completed to determine effective caregiver strategies to facilitate pointing skills in typical developing infants, as well as infants with developmental delays. A total of 2 databases were searched, including Our Lady of the Lake Sueltenfuss Library and Google Scholar. Keywords used for the search included infant + pointing; caregiver + pointing; infant + developmental delays + pointing; caregiver + strategies + pointing + developmental delays. Inclusion criteria included infants up to age 12 months with developmental delays; infants up to age 12 months without developmental delays; pointing skills; and caregiver interactions. Exclusion criteria included children older than 12 mos., no caregiver involvement, and verbal communication. Results: Results of the systematic review will be provided, stating the most effective caregiver strategies found to facilitate pointing skills in infants with developmental delays. Conclusions: Conclusions will be provided, including future directions for research.

Speech sound disorders and development in bilingual children is complex. Children ages 3-5 years old raised in bilingual households may deviate in language development compared to an average monolingual child. To prevent a misdiagnosis, it is crucial that a Speech-language pathologist identifies how a speech disorder presents itself in a child who maintains two speech sound systems and uses methods that pertain to both languages. In order to treat developmental issues in a meaningful and effective way, etiology and learning treatments must be considered holistically. The purpose of this research is to explore the factors that aid bilingual children through analyzing the effect of a well-developed teaching and methodology that provides a positive outcome on a child’s learning. Speech and language were assessed in diagnostic measures, demographic data, and test data. Bilingual phonological assessments were implemented in a strategic step by step process. The first is reviewing the case history of a child’s language usage by obtaining information from parent interviews. Second is obtaining speech samples focusing on consonant accuracy in single word and connected speech. The final step is determining and organizing the phonetic inventory in both languages. Over time, the phonetically transcribed speech samples were compared in order to measure error patterns in both phonological inventories. The linguistic data answers underlying questions about bilingual environments on language acquisition. The long term goal is to fill in these research gaps that are needed in order to provide effective assessment tools and programs for bilingual Spanish-English speakers.