The Effectiveness of Speech and Language Therapies in Verbal Comprehension Disorders in Pre-School Aged Children
Sara Uragani, Sara Rinaldi
Language impairments represent the most common developmental disorders in children; in the worst cases, they can extend to receptive language. The aim of this review is to examine the effectiveness of speech and language interventions for pre-schoolers with receptive language disorders. Firstly, the clinical question was established by using the PICOM method, later research was carried out by querying the following databases: PubMed Embase, Cochrane Library, PsychINFO (Ovid) and SpeechBITE. The included studies were analysed, focusing on verbal comprehension results. Furthermore, the quality of the studies was assessed by implementing the PEDro scale and a table created ad hoc to examine external validity. After the selection process, 18 studies were included in the review (none were Italian samples). The described interventions varied in types of treatment, procedures, frequency, time and intensity. All the studies present bias. The possibility of implementing the proposed interventions in an Italian context was detected. The results offer suggestions which benefit the treatment of children with verbal comprehension disorders; in addition, they summarise the types and methods of suggested treatments in relation to the sample features. Performing early and indirect interventions on children with language delay has been found to be important, whereas direct and intensive interventions are recommended for children with speech-language disorders.
Keywords
Primary language impairment, Language delay, Speech and language therapy, Pre-schoolers, Treatment outcomes, Review.