Effective Treatment Approaches in Late Talkers
Chiara Baldo, Elisa Isolani, Sara Rinaldi
Late language emergence is linked to poor outcomes in academic achievement, social and behavioural development, and self-esteem (Collisson, 2016). The aim is to identify the most effective treatments for late talkers and assess their relevance to the Italian context. PICOM was formulated based on EBM principles. Eligibility criteria were established a priori: diagnosis of language delay, sample age of 18-36 months, RCT or review study design, presence of both pretest and post-test evaluations, and studies published in Italian or English. A bibliographic search was conducted on Medline, Cochrane Library, SpeechBite, PsychInfo, and Eric databases. Each included study underwent an evaluation of its methodological quality and generalizability. The PEDro-P scale was used to assess methodological quality, while a specific scale, based on the one proposed by De Cagno et al. (2018), was employed to evaluate external validity. A total of 3,792 studies were identified, and seven met the eligibility criteria. Six studies used an indirect parent coaching approach, and one study involved direct speech therapy. All studies reported significant improvements at post-test; however, the difference between the intervention and control groups decreased as follow-up time increased. Parent training programmes appear to enhance parents’ communication skills and reduce the need for direct speech therapy sessions in children who may develop language disorders. However, some studies proposed home-visiting approaches, which may not be easily replicable in the Italian NHS, and these studies did not achieve high scores in external validity. The results are significant considering the characteristics of the sample and the cultural context of the parents involved. The parent coaching approach may be useful as a preventive strategy but cannot be considered a substitute for direct intervention when language difficulties persist.
Keywords
Late talkers, Language delay, Speech therapy, Parent training, Expressive vocabulary.
