Teaching expressive language to a non- speaking child with Down's Syndrome: classroom applications

Abstract

In an earlier paper, we presented a case study of a child with some developed language. The present paper describes similar work with an initially non-speaking child. After four terms in the programme, he too made distinct progress, moving from a baseline of no speech to the acquisition of some expressive language. This included the production of elicited utterances of up to seven words in length, and the spon taneous use of one- and two-word combinations in a range of non- training settings. Although the success of the programme depended largely on the systematic implementation of a highly structured prog ramme, major breakthroughs in fact resulted from opportunistic man ipulations of learning and reinforcement contingencies.