Spoken Vocabulary Outcomes of Toddlers with Developmental Delay Receiving Parent-Coached Augmented Language Intervention: A Phonetic Description and Analysis

This study examined the characteristics and predictors of speech sound development of 48 children with developmental delay after participating in parent-coached language interventions. Spoken target vocabulary words were identified for each child and transcribed phonetically. Phonemes were categorized by developmental sound classes and examined for speech sound errors. In general, the majority of children’s phonemes and speech-sound errors were age appropriate at the end of intervention and were not significantly different across intervention groups. When baseline predictors were examined, only intervention group and age were significant predictors of the number of spoken target vocabulary words at the end of intervention. Outcomes of this study suggest that clinicians should use AAC with young children with complex communication needs (CCN) to support expressive language development without fear that it will impair articulation skills