Hughes, Lucy Mari;
(2024)
'Better Conversations With Children': Design and Evaluation of a New Intervention for Children With Developmental Language Disorder.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Developmental language disorder (DLD) affects around two pupils in every UK classroom and can impact on their education and social well-being. Thus far, interventions for school-aged children with DLD have been targeted at vocabulary, grammar or narrative skills. This project developed and evaluated a new conversationbased intervention, 'Better Conversations with Children' (BCC), based on established methods used with other clinical populations. The study employed conversation-based outcome measures, which were novel for this client group. Video-recorded data were collected from 22 typically-developing children (aged 5;02 - 8;10 years) and their main carers to provide a benchmark for the main intervention study. These findings revealed wide individual variability, but showed stability at group level for key conversation variables across two timepoints, six weeks apart. Six children with DLD (aged 6;06 - 8;02 years) participated in BCC with their mothers. Each dyad took part in pre-therapy assessment and six conversation-focused therapy sessions. Video feedback was used to highlight facilitative and barrier strategies within their talk and to agree targets for change. Follow-up conversation and languagebased measures evaluated progress in response to intervention. Experimentally-controlled outcomes showed an increase in children's average utterance length and a statistically significant decrease in the use of barrier conversation behaviours for five dyads. Change in child-to-adult ratio of speech was achieved, in line with intervention targets. Children also showed progress on standardised assessments, including the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals. Feasibility findings provided strong support for the further development of the intervention, while conversation analysis revealed the potential for adult turns to shape the development of children's language and communication. Larger-scale studies will be needed to establish whether these findings can be generalised to the wider population of children with language disorder. The results suggest that school-aged children can benefit from direct intervention to improve their everyday conversation.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | 'Better Conversations With Children': Design and Evaluation of a New Intervention for Children With Developmental Language Disorder |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Language and Cognition UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187117 |
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