Evaluation of Speech Pathology Intervention within a Multi-faceted Early Intervention Program for Children At Risk
*Corresponding Author:
Copyright: © 2020 . This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Research has consistently confirmed that children from vulnerable families, where there is social disadvantage, parental mental health problems, substance abuse or domestic violence, are at risk of long-term language delays and disorders. If allowed to persist these language difficulties can then directly contribute to a range of social, emotional and academic difficulties across the lifespan. A pilot study reported in 2009 evaluated the Spilstead Model (SM) of Early Intervention for vulnerable children. Results from a battery of standardised clinician and parent rated measures indicated that the SM of early intervention had the potential to maximise outcomes for both children and families with particular gains noted in speech and language skills. This associated study aimed to further examine language outcomes for a larger sample of children who received Speech Pathology services under the Spilstead Model. The study targeted all children attending the Spilstead Therapeutic Preschool who presented on enrolment with language delays. The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamental’s Pre-school 2nd Edition was then administered to assess specific language skills via pre-post test research design. Results from a sample of 46 children indicated large effect size changes in receptive language at 0.87 and core language at 0.82 at a p
