Readiness and Patterns of Growth in Children With SELI

Abstract

Readiness for language change is a concept that underlies parents' and clinicians' views about how to manage children with language impairments. Various notions exist about how to determine when a child is ready to learn a particular language behavior, but none are well substantiated. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a child's state of readiness to learn a language behavior, as measured by a dynamic assessment (stimulability) task, would predict the pattern of learning. Participants in the study were 21 children, ages 31–36 months, who showed a specific impairment of expressive language. They took part in a 9-week program. Seventeen children participated in an intensive 3-week treatment, organized in a baseline-intervention-withdrawal design. Weekly language samples were taken from all children, and growth patterns were identified by fitting logarithmic and linear curves to plots of MLU scores. The results indicated little relationship between the children's readiness, as measured by dynamic assessment, and their patterns of growth, despite a strong correlation between measured readiness and amount of growth. This finding is discussed in relation to individual differences, procedures for dynamic assessment, and the need for greater attention to the issue of readiness by researchers and clinicians alike.