Parent implementation of a treatment for late talkers based on cross-situational statistical learning principles: Treatment fidelity and acceptability

Figures & data

Table I. Demographic details and language skills of participants.

Parent’s name	Parent’s highest level of education	IRSAD quintile of home suburb^a	Child’s name	Child’s age in months	Expressive vocabulary size^b	Receptive vocabulary size^b
Anna	Trade/diploma/certificate	2	Adam	18	3	214
Becky	Postgraduate university	4	Ben	18	4	143
Christina	Trade/diploma/certificate	5	Charlie	30	87	532
Danielle	Trade/diploma/certificate	3	David	28	8	539

^aIndex of Relative Socioeconomic Advantage and Disadvantage (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016).

^bMeasured on OZI (Australian English Communicative Development Inventory; Kalashnikova et al., 2016).

Figure 1. Phases of Intervention.

Table II. Target and control words for younger and older children.

Younger children (Adam and Ben)		Older children (Charlie)
Target	Control	Target	Control
Cup	Plate	Cup	Plate
Ball	Book	Tiger	Monkey
Car	Truck	Eat	Wash
Bed	Door	Bed	Door
Sit	Hug	Cut	Cook
Dog	Cow	Fire engine	Helicopter
Swim	Dance	Swim	Dance
Socks	Trousers	Pizza	Burger
Nose	Mouth	Shop	Park
Bath	Shower	Garden	Sandpit

Table III. Total, mean, range, standard deviation (SD), and average per minute dose for all participants in video recorded practice sessions.

	Treatment fidelity Session 1					Treatment fidelity Session 2
	Total	Mean	Range	SD	Average dose rate per minute	Total	Mean	Range	SD	Average dose rate per minute
Anna^a	321	107	102–114	6.24	10.7	303	101	96–106	5	10.10
Becky^a	465	155	112–196	42.06	15.5	479	160	114–199	42.85	15.96
Christine^a	204	68	27–118	46.16	6.8	277	92	61–111	27.30	9.23
Danielle^b	150	50	45–58	7	7.5	–	–	–	–

^aVideo duration approximately 30 minutes.

^bVideo duration approximately 20 minutes.

Table IV. Totals and percentages for different sentence types used to present the target words for all participants in video recorded practice sessions.

	Treatment fidelity Session 1				Treatment fidelity Session 2
	Declarative	Interrogative	Imperative	Exclamatory	Declarative	Interrogative	Imperative	Exclamatory
Anna	119 (41%)	122 (42%)	30 (10%)	21 (7%)	114 (41%)	90 (32%)	55 (20%)	18 (6%)
Becky	156 (36%)	133 (31%)	110 (26%)	31 (7%)	128 (28%)	195 (43%)	83 (18%)	50 (11%)
Christina	85 (42%)	77 (38%)	28 (14%)	11 (5%)	85 (31%)	143 (53%)	35 (13%)	7 (3%)
Total	360 (39%)	332 (36%)	168 (18%)	63 (7%)	327 (33%)	428 (43%)	173 (17%)	75 (7%)

Table V. Totals and percentages of different sentence positions used to present the target words in video recorded practice sessions for the three participants who completed the intervention.

	Treatment fidelity Session 1			Treatment fidelity Session 2
	Beginning	Middle	End	Beginning	Middle	End
Anna	41 (13%)	148 (46%)	132 (41%)	38 (13%)	125 (41%)	140 (46%)
Becky	47 (10%)	294 (63%)	124 (27%)	19 (4%)	144 (30%)	316 (66%)
Christina	22 (11%)	67 (33%)	115 (56%)	25 (9%)	113 (41%)	139 (50%)
Total	110 (12%)	509 (51%)	371 (37%)	82 (8%)	382 (36%)	595 (56%)

Table VI. Results of the acceptability survey before and after the study.

Concept	Number of relevant questions	Pre-treatment^a			Post-treatment^b			Change between means
		Mean	Standard deviation	Minimum- maximum rating	Mean	Standard deviation	Minimum- maximum rating
Understanding of treatment	1	5	0	5–5	5	0	5–5	0
Willingness to carry out treatment	1	5	0	5–5	5	0	5–5	0
Affordability of treatment	2	5	0	5–5	5	0	5–5	0
Lack of disadvantages or side effects	2	5	0	5–5	5	0	5–5	0
Fit family routine	3	4.67	0.49	4–5	4.42	0.67	3–5	−0.25
Like treatment procedures	1	5	0	5–5	4.67	0.57	1–4	−0.33
Suitability of treatment	2	5	0	5–5	4.67	0.52	4–5	−0.33
Time efficient	1	4.34	1.15	3–5	4	1	3–5	−0.34
Concern for child’s delay	1	4	0	4–4	2.67	1.15	2–4	−1.33

^aResponses from all four participants.

^bResponses from the three participants who completed the intervention.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016) ‘Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) [https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/2033.0.55.001], accessed 10 November 2023

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Kalashnikova, M., Schwarz, I.-C., & Burnham, D. (2016). OZI: Australian English communicative development inventory. First Language, 36(4), 407–427. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723716648846

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