| Acquisition of language is critical for young children. A communication disorder may have a pervasive effect on the child's development, since language skills are usually related to academic and life-support skills. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a milieu language approach consisting of prompted questions, models and time delay in a storybook context on the expressive language skills of young children with developmental disabilities and language delays. Young children with disabilities, ages 33 to 46 months, were identified for participation in this study. A multiple baseline design across selected target language behaviors was employed to evaluate the effects of the milieu language approach.;Storybook sessions consisted of intervention and post intervention sessions. Intervention sessions included the first ten pages of the picture book and during these first ten pages the experimenter implemented the milieu language approach. The post intervention sessions consisted of the experimenter immediately reading the remaining five pages of the picture. While the experimenter read these five pages, the milieu language was not implemented. Baseline consisted of the experimenter reading a picture book to the child. No prompted questions, models, or time delay were used during baseline 1. Intervention of the target language behaviors included the experimenter implementing prompted questions, models, and time delay. Following intervention, a second baseline was implemented to measure children's retention of the target language behaviors. Throughout the study, generality probes were conducted with an unfamiliar adult.;Results of the study indicate that two target children increased the use of target language behaviors. In addition, all children increased total number of words during intervention and post intervention sessions. Results of classroom teachers to opinion questionnaire are reported as well as children's opinions of the milieu language approach. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed. |
