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The main goal of this study was to ascertain the effectiveness of an intervention programme on narrative coherence in students with Typical Development (TD) and with a Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Participants were 99 five-year-old students from schools in Tenerife. A task involving retelling a story was used for the narrative analysis, in which we studied thematic unity and the causal and temporal semantic relationships. The intervention programme, which had a total of 55 20-minute sessions, was organized into different practice levels and enlisted the collaboration of teachers and speech therapists. Two experimental groups (DLD and TD) and two control groups (DLD and TD) were established. The results show that students with DLD initially showed worse performance on coherence than their classmates with TD. After the programme, the students who received the intervention not only improved their performance but showed the strongest gains in thematic unity and mental state-causal relationships. The working model used serves as a guide for early intervention. [Translation from Spanish by Mary Black.]

Background: There is a clear predominance of programmes aimed at improving aspects related to language production in pupils with developmental language disorder (DLD). However, programmes aimed at improving their receptive skills are limited. Aims: The main aim was to assess the effectiveness of an intervention programme for oral language comprehension skills in preschoolers with typical development (TD) and pupils with DLD. Methods & Procedures: Participants were 99 five-year-old pupils, with and without DLD, divided into four groups: two control groups (TD-C = 25; DLD-C = 25) and two experimental groups (TD-T = 24; DLD-T = 25), from schools on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The study used, as pre- and post-measures, the receptive language subtests of the CELF-4-Spanish: "Concepts and Following Directions, Word Classes--Receptive and Sentence Structure," as well as two tasks assessing comprehension of paragraphs and narratives. Due to the strong link between oral comprehension skills and executive functions, working memory and semantic fluency are included in this research. The "Backward Digit Span" subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV) and "Semantic Fluency" subtest of the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) were used to assess working memory and semantic fluency, respectively. The intervention programme followed a multitiered system of support (MTSS) model, with 95 sessions lasting 60 min each delivered jointly by teachers and speech and language therapists, and focused on lexical-semantic, morphological, syntactic and narrative skills; inferences; verbal working memory; and semantic fluency. Outcomes & Results: The results showed, as expected, that pupils diagnosed with DLD initially performed worse on oral language comprehension and executive functions than pupils with TD. Further, the DLD-T and TD-T groups showed greater gains following the programme, especially in word classes--receptive, sentence structure, verbal working memory and semantic fluency. Finally, a significant positive correlation was found between the gains obtained by the participants in verbal working memory and semantic fluency, with the gains obtained in the three CELF-4-Spanish subtests. Conclusions & Implications: An intervention programme applied at an early age fosters oral language comprehension skills and executive functions in pupils with DLD and TD. The intervention organized at different levels of support, following an MTSS model, showed clear progress of the DLD and TD groups in oral language comprehension and executive functions.

Background: The main objective of this research has been to verify the effectiveness of an intervention program on syntactic skills of pupils with typical development and with developmental language disorder., Method: A total of 99 five-year-old pupils from schools of Tenerife (Spain) participated. The CELF-4 Recalling Sentences, Formulated Sentences, and Sentence Structure subtests were used. The intervention program consisted of 40 sessions implemented by teachers and speech language therapists. Three levels of practice were organized: in the ordinary classroom (large group and small group) and in the support classroom., Results: Pupils diagnosed with developmental language disorder initially performed worse on syntax than those with typical development. In addition, the goodness of an intervention program was verified especially for Recalling sentences, and, to a lesser extent, for Sentences Structure, which improves in the experimental group with typical development as well as in the control and experimental groups with language development disorder., Conclusions: A collaborative and inclusive intervention program that uses implicit techniques favors the improvement of certain aspects of the syntactic processing of pupils with developmental language disorder.