Effectiveness of Early Parent-Based Language Intervention

Effectiveness of a Parent-Based Language Intervention Group Program for Two-Year-Old Children With Language Delay

The purpose of the study is to examine the effectiveness of a highly-structured parent-based language intervention group program for two-year-old children with language delay.

Language delay in toddlers is a prevalent problem for pediatric practitioners. As there are no clear guidelines to deal with this problem, in German speaking countries the "wait-and-see"approach is widely chosen, although longitudinal studies have found that children with language delay are at risc for cognitive, behavioral and social-emotional problems.

During the last few years various forms of early language intervention have been increasingly implemented in German speaking countries. However, they have not been evaluated.

Early parent-based intervention could be an economical way in prevention speech and language disorders.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Children with receptive and/or expressive language abilities below norm range measured by the standardized and norm-referenced German developmental language test SETK-2 (Grimm, 2000)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Children with visual impairments, genetic syndromes, metabolic diseases
• Children with previous language intervention