Functional Model of Intervention Flashcards
Functional Language Approach:
2 goals
Functional Language Approach:
○ Integrative– “well-integrated whole” (Owens, 2014, 346)
○ Overall & immediate objective: Generalize to everyday conversational
use
◉ SLP: Consultant for other language facilitators
○ Parents/teachers interact more with children
○ SLP as consultant, trainer, collaborator
○ Training parents how to elicit and model child’s language
○ Teaching teachers in classroom re: eliciting/modeling language
○ Using contextually appropriate settings for facilitating language
○ 2 Goals for Intervention:
i. Teach a general repertoire of language features to communicate
appropriate in a variety of social contexts in appropriate ways
ii. Stimulate overall language development
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Differences between Functional & Traditional Models
of Intervention
Functional Model
◉ Contextually appropriate
setting: individual/group
◉ Relationship of
communication
aspects–stressed in
spontaneous communication
◉ Intervention: goal is message
transmission/communication
Traditional Model
◉ Artificial setting:
individual/group
◉ Isolated language
constructs–little attention to
interrelationship of language
units
◉ Intervention: goal is modeling,
imitation, practice, drill
Differences between Functional & Traditional Models
of Intervention
The optimal goal
Functional Model
◉ Optimal: Use of language to
communicate/social tool
◉ Many, increased
opportunities to develop
wide range of language
structures in social &
spontaneous communication
◉ Many varied opportunities to
develop communication skills
with wide range of partners
Traditional Model
◉ Little attention: re: use of
language as a social tool
◉ Few chances/opportunities to
develop language structures
that are not targeted for
intervention
◉ Few chances/opportunities to
interact verbally with others
during intervention
Principles of Functional Language Approach (Owens, 2014)
Principles of Functional Language Approach (Owens, 2014)
**Variables that affect generalization
1. Language facilitator as reinforcer
2. Close approximation of natural learning
3. Following developmental guidelines
4. Following the child’s lead
5. Active involvement of the child
6. Heavy influence of context on language
7. Familiar events providing scripts
8. Designing a generalization plan—first!
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- Language facilitator as reinforcer
- Language facilitator as reinforcer
a. Dyad play interaction: caring adult
b. Adults: appreciate world from child’s perspective–wonder, delight,
magical…
c. Non-intrusive; attentiveness, willingness to learn/participate
d. Concern for children’s preferences, topics–adults attending to child!
e. Providing evaluative, supportive feedback
f. Reducing ‘authority figure’ feedback
g. Intervention with facilitator: fun, exciting, silliness, interest, ease…
h. Acceptance of utterances–not wrong! Reinforce some portion of
utterances
i. Child: “I need ear-gloves”
ii. SLP: “Yes, that’s right; these are like little gloves for your ears. We call
them earmuffs. Let’s put on your earmuffs so they will warm your
ears”. 7
- Close approximation of natural learning
- Close approximation of natural learning
a. Use language as it naturally occurs
b. Without the naturalness, the child is deprived of the intrinsic
motivation to communicate.
c. Natural learning→generalization of learning
d. Natural language models include
parents/teachers/aides/paras/other therapists as principal resources
for implementation of language intervention
e. Train/model facilitative techniques to other natural language models
f. SLP: collaborator –meaningful use of skills
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- Following developmental guidelines
- Following developmental guidelines
a. Follow typical language development for selection purposes, with
alternatives as necessary!
b. Developmental norms: provides sequential structure
c. Adaptations for individual child & context in which he/she functions
d. SLP: understanding cognitive structures underlying linguistic functions
i. Plurals: child needs to understand one/more than one
ii. Why: child needs to understand how to reconstruct information in
reverse; reasoning
e. Different communication interaction situations require different types of
communication
f. Appropriate expectations: children learn gradually, following many
encounters/trials
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- Following the child’s lead
- Following the child’s lead
a. Following child’s lead–manipulate the conversation, encourage desired
language features
b. Attend to context/intent of each child utterance
c. Adults: choice to direct/maintain child’s attention
(adult/clinician-centered; directed) OR to attend to what interests the child
(child-centered/directed)
i. Children with ID: build on the focus of their attention–more
beneficial
d. Interpret child’s verbal behavior in terms of its attention–form may be
wrong, but intention must be noted
e. Child initiation: responded to accordingly, great opportunity for learning
i. *Continued use of directive responses may decrease/diminish child’s
initiation
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- Active involvement of the child
- Active involvement of the child
a. Following child’s lead–manipulate the conversation, encourage desired
language features
b. Motivating participation activities with potential for variety of language
contexts
c. Generally, more involved the child, the more language generalizes→ more
stable the generalization
d. Active participation! Attention: attention allocation (Mehl, MacRoy-Higgins,
Shafer, Barriere, 2023)
i. *Not a passive process!
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- Heavy influence of context on language
Context and contextual situation
- Heavy influence of context on language
a. Contextual situation: language as a socially based cultural form–use
reflects the individual’s language, interpersonal and cultural competence in
a given contextual situation
b. Context—-language in everyday events/social situations
i. Rich context for child with LI to experience/practice linguistic and
non-linguistic attempts
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- Familiar events providing scripts
Event sequences in scrip help children do what ?
- Familiar events providing scripts
a. Script: internalized, set of expectations about routine/specific events in a
temporal-causal sequence
b. Shared event knowledge–specific situations in which children can learn
appropriate language (i.e. birthday party, going trick-or-treating, baking a
cake); routine events can be used as contexts for language intervention
c. Event sequences in scripts help with increasing language
receptive/expressive skills, help with word recall
d. Scripts are modified based on maturity level
i. General structure may be same, but include more details, extensions
as child ages
ii. May involve more options (Sometimes…), alternatives (You either X
or Y), conditions (If…then)
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- Designing a generalization plan–first!
Context and content
- Designing a generalization plan–first!
a. Plan for generalization is needed; format for training targets
b. Variety of settings, situations, and people across where training can occur
c. Address both CONTEXT and CONTENT
i. Context: method of training, language facilitators, cues,
contingencies, locations of training
ii. Content: training targets & training items
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Training Targets:
Training Targets:
○ ** Child should be a successful communicator (to the best of his/her ability
today)
○ Choose targets with goal of child as effective communicator
○ Developmental guidelines to aid in choosing targets
○ Natural setting: targeting forms in this functional setting–practical
○ Determine need through environmental observation (ex. Child requests,
but ineffectively→may choose as target)
○ Be careful of low expectations becoming fulfilling! No low environment
expectation! SLP→ Training
○ Keep it Naturalistic: do not violate the function of questions (i.e. Ask me
what I’m doing.)–better: “Can you guess what I’m doing?”
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Training Items:
Knowledge of both relevant and irrelevant is important because …..?
Contrast training
Training Items:
○ Enough examples to practice! (Sufficient opportunities)
○ Child: understand both relevant and irrelevant aspects of the
communication context
■ Understand when to use the specific form and when not to
■ Knowledge of both relevant and irrelevant is important in
learning–learn when target is required and when not
● Ex. past tense–use forms from past to present past tense
and include regular past tense form (i.e. yesterday, last
week, in the past), and not determining that the pronoun I
means to use past tense (with ex. “Yesterday, I…”, “Last
week, I….”, “In the past, I….”)
■ Contrast training: Child learns structures/situations that obligate
use and those that do not
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CONTEXT: Method of Training
CONTEXT: Method of Training (Owens, 2014, 253-254)
◉ Learning forms that are rule-governed–need to both include naturalistic
interaction & teaching procedures
○ Deduced from SLPs examples and use of child
○ Regular past tense:
■ “When a verb is used in the past tense, an -ed is added to it to
produce a past tense verb”. unclear/not naturalistic!
■ “Every day I walk. Yesterday, I walked. Everyday we talk, yesterday
we talked”. –more naturalistic
■ “The word ‘yesterday’ tells us to add the ‘ed’. (Or for younger
children, ‘the word yesterday tells us to add the /t/ sound. Now you
try it; I’ll start”.
● Every day I walk, yesterday I ______.
● Every day they rake, yesterday they ______.
■ -ed suffix: /t/, /d/, /ɛd/
◉ SLP: Provides organized language data–minimally different situations that
do/don’t follow the rule (see examples on page 255); manipulation of context
and environment 17
