Comparing the effects of morphosyntax and phonology intervention on final consonant clusters in finite morphemes and final consonant inventories

Studies of children with specific language impairment (SLI) have shown that finite morphemes are particularly difficult. The present study was designed to compare the accuracy of final consonant clusters and additions to final consonant inventories of 20 preschool children enrolled in either language or phonology intervention for 12-week blocks. Pre and post-treatment measurements of cluster accuracy for copula, third person singular and past tense morphemes were obtained from spontaneous language samples. The results indicated that there were significant differences between the intervention groups in percent accuracy change for final consonant clusters marking regular past tense and contractible copula. There was no significant group difference in clusters marking third person singular or additions to the final consonant inventory. These results help provide evidence that specific phonological skills, reflected in final consonant cluster productions, improved from language intervention that focused on finite morphemes for children with both morphosyntactic and phonological impairments.