MENTAL RETARDATION AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES RESEARCH REVIEWS 10: 184192 (2004)

THEORETICAL INFLUENCES ON RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT AND INTERVENTION IN INDIVIDUALS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION
Leonard Abbeduto1* and Donna Boudreau2
1 2

Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin

Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon

In this article, we consider the theoretical debates and frameworks that have shaped research on language development and intervention in persons with mental retardation over the past four decades. Our starting point is the nativist theory, which has been espoused most forcefully by Chomsky. We also consider more recent alternatives to the nativist approach, including the social-interactionist and emergentist approaches, which have been developed largely within the eld of child language research. We also consider the implications for language development and intervention of the genetic syndrome-based approach to behavioral research advocated by Dykens and others. We briey review the impact and status of the debates spurred by the nativist approach in research on the course of language development in individuals with mental retardation. In addition, we characterize some of the achievements in language intervention that have been made possible by the debates spurred by nativism and the various alternatives to it. The evidence we consider provides support for all three alternatives to the nativist approach. Moreover, successful interventions appear to embody elements of several of these approaches as well as other theoretical approaches (e.g., behaviorism). We conclude that language intervention must be theoretically eclectic in its approach, with different strategies appropriate for teaching different features of language, at different points in development, and for children displaying different char 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. acteristics or learning histories.
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been developed largely within the eld of child language research. We then consider the genetic syndrome-based approach to behavioral research in mental retardation advocated by Elisabeth Dykens, Robert Hodapp, and others (e.g., Dykens, Hodapp, and Finucane [2000] and Hodapp and Dykens [1994]). This latter framework has been made possible by advances in molecular genetics but has been motivated by long-standing questions about individual differences among those with mental retardation. We then briey review research on the course of language development of individuals with mental retardation that addresses the predictions of the nativist theory. Finally, we characterize the history and current state of our knowledge of effective language intervention for individuals with mental retardation, emphasizing ndings sparked by the debates spurred by nativism. NATIVIST APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT The nativist approach advocated by Chomsky [1965], [1975], [1988]; Fodor [1983]; and Pinker [1996], was rst introduced in the 1960s. This approach has had, and continues to have, a profound inuence on investigations of language development in typical as well as atypical populations. Although there are different variants of the approach, all include four key claims: 1. The human brain is especially well designed to learn language and, thus, every child is born with the capacity to learn a language. 2. This capacity consists of a tacit or implicit knowledge of the properties common to all languages and of the constraints on the ways in which languages can differ. This advance knowledge leads the child to generate only a limited number of sensibly constrained hypothGrant sponsor: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Grant numbers: R01 HD24356 and P01 HD03352. *Correspondence to: Leonard Abbeduto, Waisman Center, University of WisconsinMadison, 1500 Highland Ave., Madison, WI 53705. E-mail: abbeduto@ waisman.wisc.edu Received 17 August 2004; Accepted 23 August 2004 Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/mrdd.20032

Key Words: language development; language intervention; nativism; emergentism; modularity; social interaction; genetic syndromes; environmental contributions

n this article, we consider the theoretical debates and frameworks that have inuenced research on language development and intervention in persons with mental retardation over the past four decades or so. These inuences come from both outside and within the eld of behavioral research on mental retardation. We begin by briey describing the nativist theories of language development, espoused most forcefully by Noam Chomsky [1990]. Although nativist theories have their origins in linguistics and originally were debated most intensely among researchers studying typical development, research on mental retardation also has been shaped by these debates. In fact, research on the language capabilities of persons with mental retardation (e.g., Williams syndrome) often has been central to these debates [Bellugi, Lai, and Wang 1997]. Next, we consider more recent alternatives to the nativist approach, including the social-interactionist and emergentist approaches, which have
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eses about the input language (e.g., rather than relying on trial-and-error). 3. The child needs to encounter only a limited number of key examples in the input language to arrive at the necessary language-specic categories and rules. These key examples represent very basic facts about language and are likely to be available in virtually all environments. Thus, normal variations in childrens environments are unlikely to have much of an impact on language development. 4. The capacity to learn language operates in modular fashion, meaning it is tuned especially to processing linguistic representations and rules and requires little if any input from more general cognitive processes or other mental functions. It is important to present two caveats at this point regarding the nativist denition of language, which is rather narrow compared with the skills and knowledge typically targeted in language development and intervention research. First, the nativist claims are intended to apply largely to learning the forms of language (i.e., phonology and syntax). Although there are thought to be innate constraints on learning word meanings and on learning how to use language for social interaction, they generally are assumed to be fewer and more general. Second, nativist claims are restricted largely to the acquisition of language competence rather than language performance; i.e., they are focused on knowledge of language forms abstracted away from the ways in which that knowledge is accessed and used in real-time, contextually bound acts of speaking and listening [Abbeduto and Short-Meyerson, 2002]. Reactions against nativist theories often have focused on this rather narrow view of language, as well as on the four key claims outlined in the foregoing discussion. ALTERNATIVES TO THE NATIVIST APPROACH The nativist approach has not gone unchallenged. Three classes of theories or frameworks that have been particularly inuential are the social-interactionist approach, the emergentist approach, and the genetic syndromes approach [Abbeduto, Evans, and Dolan, 2001].
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Social-Interactionist Approach Originally, this approach was associated with Bruner [1975] and Snow [1994], among others. It is based on three key claims: 1. Language development is motivated by the childs desire for, and attempts to acquire, a means of participation in social interaction with the important people in his or her life. From the social-interactionist perspective, language development is embedded within the broader context of the acquisition of cultural practices. Language is thus, just one among many such practices to be learned. 2. The interactions and relationships that the child has with other, competent, language users, especially parents or other linguistically skilled care providers, are critical for determining the rate and course of language development. In the ideal case, care providers scaffold the childs learning, providing opportunities to acquire and practice more advanced behaviors for speaking and listening with appropriate contextual support. 3. There is considerable variation among children regarding their environments, including the extent and nature of their interactions and relationships with care providers. Thus, not all care providers will be as inclined to, or as adept at, scaffolding the childs language learning. This suggests (given the rst two claims) that wide variations in language learning are possible and result, in part, from environmental causes. Although the social-interactionist approach is not inconsistent with the possibility that children are predisposed by virtue of heredity to be especially prepared to learn language, the approach also emphasizes that the social uses and contexts of language are important for development and are a source of differences among children as regards their trajectories and outcomes. In the socialinteractionist approach, therefore, environmental variations matter to language development, as do variations in performance. Moreover, language learning is connected intimately to, and no different than, learning in other domains.
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Emergentist Approach This approach owes its origins, in part, to the connectionist, or neural network, models of Elman [Elman, 1995, 1999, 1996], Seidenberg [Seidenberg, 1997, 1999], and others. Like nativists, emergentists assume that children are well prepared by virtue of the design of their brains to learn language. In general, the emergentists differ from the nativists with regards to three additional claims: 1. This preparedness to learn language is a property of the childs domain-general cognitive system. Thus, language learning depends on the same mechanisms as does the learning of other types of skills; there is no languagespecic learning module. 2. Learning is a process of determining which properties of language regularly co-occur in the input language. 3. The ways in which language is represented are connected intimately to, and shaped by, the human input and output systems. More technically, the mind is conceptualized as a network of nodes and associations between them (much like the physical brain is a system of neurons and connections among them). Thus, language learning is a process of forming associations of varying strengths among nodes in the network, with each node representing a feature in the input language and with a link to output (comprehension or production) nodes. Associations between nodes and their strength are determined by the frequency of cooccurrence of the language features they encode in the language to which the child is exposed. Moreover, the system is dynamic, representing at any point in time, its history of encounters with the environment to that point. In the emergentist approach, therefore, cognitive variations, environmental variations, and the constraints inherent in the output (or performance) systems all shape the nature and course of language development. Genetic Syndromes Approach Language and communication have assumed central roles in behavioral research on mental retardation for several decades [Rosenberg and Abbeduto, 1993]. Interestingly, however, this research historically has not been especially concerned with exploring possible differences in language development or responsiveness to language intervention across different etiologies of mental retarBOUDREAU

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dation. There are many reasons for this state of affairs, not the least of which being that in the past etiology could not be determined for most instances of mental retardation. The popularity of nativist theories, with their claim of species universality, however, also discouraged investigations of etiological differences in language development among individuals with mental retardation [Abbeduto, Evans, and Dolan, 2001]. Recent advances in molecular genetics and related disciplines have made it possible to identify the causes of many more cases of mental retardation [Brodsky and Lombroso, 1998]. In the eld of behavioral research on mental retardation, this has led to an increasing interest in understanding behavioral (including linguistic) variability among persons with mental retardation in terms of etiology [Hodapp and Dykens, 1994]. Such research often has as its goal the specication of the behavioral phenotype, or prole of strengths and weaknesses, that characterizes individuals with the syndrome and distinguishes them from people whose mental retardation has a different etiology. Dykens and colleagues have offered the useful caution that it is unlikely that any given aspect of a behavioral prole will be unique to the syndrome or shared by all individuals with the syndrome [Dykens, 1995, 1999]. Instead, Dykens argues for conceptualizing a behavioral phenotype as a probabilistic prole, i.e., a prole that is more likely to be evidenced by those with the syndrome than without it, but not necessarily unique to or universal among, those with the syndrome. Although the syndrome-based approach emphasizes the genetic bases of language (and other dimensions of behavior), it includes three claims that distinguish it from the nativist approach: 1. Genetic differences can lead to different developmental trajectories of language and different degrees of impairment in language relative to other psychological and behavioral domains [Abbeduto et al., 2001]. 2. Language development is shaped by impairments in cognition and other domains of functioning. Indeed, the development of language (or any other dimension of behavior) can be understood only in relation to the other dimensions of functioning that dene the syndromes behavioral phenotype [Murphy and Abbeduto, 2003]. 186

3. The characteristics and behaviors of any individual with mental retardation affect, and are affected by, his or her environments [Hodapp, 1997; Murphy and Abbeduto, 2004]. In syndrome-based research on language, therefore, genetic variations, cognitive and behavioral variations, and environmental variations all matter for the development of language and communication. Moreover, linguistic performance is thought to mediate some environmental effects on the individuals subsequent language development [Murphy and Abbeduto, 2004]. EMPIRICAL RESEARCH AND THE THEORETICAL DEBATES: EVIDENCE FROM MENTAL RETARDATION Not surprisingly, the nativist approach and the debates and alternatives it engendered have had a profound inuence on research on language development in the eld of mental retardation. In addition, some of the most important (and, at times, controversial) evidence brought to bear on the debate has come from the eld of mental retardation (see, e.g., Bellugi, Lai, and Wang, [1997], Mervis et al. [2003], and Rondal [1995]). To contextualize the subsequent discussion of language intervention, we provide a brief overview of four lines of research on mental retardation, each of which addresses the nativist approach or reactions to it. We also consider the implications of each line of research for language intervention. Delayed or Different? The nativist claim that there is a universal (i.e., species-common) capacity for language learning leads to the hypothesis that language should be learned in fundamentally the same way by all children. Variations in rate may occur because of peripheral factors (e.g., sensory decits), but the nature of the process should not be altered in any fundamental way. In the case of mental retardation, language development should be delayed but not different relative to intellectually typical age peers [Rosenberg and Abbeduto, 1993]. In general, the evidence to date does support a delayed rather than a difference characterization of language development among individuals with mental retardation; however, this may reect the fact that most studies have been designed to characterize, at a rather gross level, the products of language develop

ment, as in early studies demonstrating that the same set of syntactic rules controls the production of language in individuals with mental retardation and younger, typically developing children [Lackner, 1968]. It is possible that such studies obscure differences in the processes by which individuals with mental retardation learn those products [KarmiloffSmith, Scerif, and Thomas, 2002]. Unfortunately, studies of the processes entailed in learning language are rare in the eld of mental retardation [Abbeduto, Evans, and Dolan, 2001, 1997]. Nevertheless, there is evidence that at least some individuals with mental retardation (e.g., those with Williams syndrome) show atypical sequences of developmental achievements and patterns of correlations among language and other dimensions of psychological competence, which suggests that they may adopt a different approach to mastering some dimensions of language [Mervis et al., 2003]. This implies that different types of language interventions may be needed depending on the processes by which an individual acquires language. Linguistic-Cognitive Dissociations? The nativist claim that language emerges from the operation of a modular mechanism leads to the hypothesis that dissociations between language and cognition (i.e., discrepancies in levels of achievement in the two domains) are possible. In the case of mental retardation, the implication is that it should be possible to nd individuals who have more highly developed cognitive than linguistic capacities and, even more interestingly, individuals who have more well-developed linguistic than cognitive capabilities [Curtiss, 1988]. In fact, the nativist view does not preclude the possibility of intact (i.e., age-appropriate) language co-occurring with mental retardation [Rondal, 1995]. In general, this research has uncovered numerous asynchronies, such as lower levels of language performance than expected based on level of nonlinguistic cognitive functioning in many individuals with mental retardation [Chapman, 2003; Fowler, 1990]. Despite early claims of spared language in individuals with Williams syndrome [Bellugi et al., 1997], however, more recent research, using larger samples and more appropriate comparison groups, has found relative strengths in, rather than a sparing of, language [Mervis et al., 2003]. In addition, variation in language ability among persons with mental retardation often has been found to be highly correlated with

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general cognitive ability (e.g., Abbeduto et al., [2003]) or with particular cognitive skills, such as auditory memory [Chapman, 2003; Merrill, Lookadoo, and Rilea, 2003; Mervis et al., 2003]. There have been isolated cases of individuals with exceptionally strong language relative to intelligence quotient (IQ; e.g., Curtiss [1988], Rondal [1995], and Yamada [1990]); but in many of these individuals, exceptional strengths in isolated cognitive domains (e.g., auditory memory) also have been observed [Mervis et al., 2003]. The implication for language intervention is that it often may be necessary to target a variety of cognitive skills that are necessary for, or facilitative of, various language targets. Environmental Contributions? Perhaps not surprisingly, nativist claims about the trivial role of environmental variations in language development elicited strong criticisms from many researchers studying typical child development [Bohannon, MacWhinney, and Snow, 1990]. Thus, there have been numerous studies designed to demonstrate that the language learning environment of children displays properties that make it ideally suited to teaching, or at least supporting, language development (see Snow [1994] for a review). There also have been demonstrations that the young typically developing child is keenly aware of, and attentive to, both recurring patterns in the language and interactions in which he or she participates [Saffran, Newport, and Aslin, 1996] and the linguistic implications of socioemotional information [Baldwin and Tomasello, 1998; Tomasello, 2001]. In the eld of mental retardation research, the focus has been on determining the extent to which the natural environments of individuals with mental retardation contribute to their problems in learning language, even in the case of individuals whose mental retardation is of a biological origin (e.g., Down syndrome). Typically, such investigations have sought to identify patterns of parental language or interaction, especially on the part of mothers, that are less than optimal for language learning [Abbeduto and Hesketh, 1997; Mahoney and Powell, 1988]. In some instances, evidence has even been provided that these patterns of parental language and interaction are causally related to the subsequent growth of language in children with a variety of developmental disabilities [Harris, Kasari, and Sigman, 1996]. Such ndings support the claim made by both the social-interactionist and emergentist
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approaches that environmental variations, while at the same time implying systematic environmental manipulations (i.e., interventions) hold the promise of improving language outcomes in individuals with mental retardation regardless of any biological constraints. Performance or Competence? Although the nativist approach distinguishes competence from performance and trivializes the latter, both the emergentist and social-interactionist approaches blur the distinction between competence and performance and thereby expand the scope of language behaviors whose development must be understood [Abbeduto, 2003]. Indeed, the study of performance or use of language to accomplish meaningful ends within the contexts of social interactions has assumed great importance in the eld of mental retardation in part because it is consistent with an interest in adaptive behavior [Abbeduto and Short-Meyerson, 2002]. Research in this area has demonstrated that not only language forms but also the social contextually appropriate uses of those forms are problematic for individuals with mental retardation [Abbeduto and Hesketh, 1997]. Moreover, despite some asynchronies in the level of achievement observed in language form mastery and skill in their social uses [Chapman, 2003; Rosenberg and Abbeduto, 1993], there also are substantial correlations among measures of these two domains for at least some populations of individuals with mental retardation [Abbeduto and Murphy, 2004]. There is also empirical evidence suggesting that various social skills and social experiences motivate and affect the acquisition of many dimensions of language [Abbeduto and Murphy, 2004; Murphy and Abbeduto, 2004). The implication for language interventions for individuals with mental retardation is that the targets for improvement are not the forms of language per se but rather the linguistic means for accomplishing important social and cognitive goals [Abbeduto and Short-Meyerson, 2002]. INFLUENCE OF THE THEORETICAL DEBATES ON LANGUAGE INTERVENTION WITH INDIVIDUALS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION At the time that the nativist approach was introduced, the eld of language intervention was growing increasingly disenchanted with behaviorism, which had dominated the eld for years. In the latter approach, it was thought that
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language was learned, like any other behavior, through principles such as operant conditioning, which were largely domain and species general [Guess et al., 1968]. In general, the behaviorist approach entailed teaching linguistic targets removed from the natural context so as to (a) highlight the target without the distractions and competing stimuli typical of natural contexts and (b) facilitate the monitoring of the childs performance [Camarata and Nelson, 1992]. Although the behaviorist approach often resulted in gains in targeted language structures or functions, the failure of children in most studies to generalize learned behaviors beyond the training context posed a signicant problem for theorists and educators alike [Warren, 1993]. Despite the failings of behaviorism, the introduction of the nativist approach had little immediate impact on language intervention for individuals with mental retardation, with the possible exception of increasing the emphasis on teaching syntactic targets [Hart and Risely, 1980; Miller and Yoder, 1972; Waryas and Stremel-Campbell, 1978]. No doubt, this state of affairs reects the trivialization by nativists of (a) environmental contributions to development in favor of genetic contributions and (b) observable linguistic performances in favor of highly abstract rules. Moreover, the strong genetic avor of the nativist approach implied that intervention (at least in the form of changes in linguistic input and the social environment) was all but futile. Nevertheless, language intervention for individuals with mental retardation has evolved rather dramatically over the past four decades fueled in large part, not by nativism, but by various elements and claims included in the social-interactionist, emergentist, and syndrome-based approaches. Today, intervention research with children with mental retardation is strongly shaped by the belief that language is facilitated by meaningful exchanges, involving topics of interest to the child, and in interactions with people who have important social relationships with the child. Thus, intervention typically entails naturalistic teaching strategies embedded in routine settings and daily activities. Moreover, the emphasis is on facilitating the acquisition and functional uses of language for communication (i.e., performance) rather than linguistic forms (i.e., competence). In addition, considerable attention is devoted to ensuring that the prerequisites for language are in place before embarking on intervention for nonspeaking individuals, with the preBOUDREAU

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requisites including gestures and other nonverbal means of intentional communication [Brady and Warren, 2003]. Despite the dominance of these naturalistic approaches, it is important to acknowledge that there remains an interest and focus on research that addresses communication and language learning from a behavioral approach as well [Matson et al., 1993; Sundberg, Endicott, and Eigenheer, 2000; Zanolli and Daggett, 1998]. Indeed, many naturalistic approaches also incorporate elements of the behaviorist approach, which reects the belief held by many interventionists that no one theoretical framework can account for the learning of all language forms and structures, for all children, at all stages of development. In the remainder of this article, we briey review ndings and trends in research on language intervention for individuals with mental retardation. In doing so, we have highlighted those ndings and trends that demonstrate the inuence of the social-interactionist, emergentist, and syndrome-based approaches. At the same time, much of the intervention research we consider also provides empirical support for the theoretical alternatives to nativism, thereby demonstrating that language intervention research can be a fertile ground for addressing important theoretical debates. The data generated from this research are informative about the types of instructional strategies that are effective, the effectiveness of different agents of change, contextual inuences on intervention effectiveness, and the impact of the learners characteristics, including the genetic syndrome producing his or her mental retardation, on intervention effectiveness. Instructional Strategies Between the 1970s and early 1990s, investigations of educational interventions for children with mental retardation often focused on broad changes in behavior. Although improvements in language were a desired outcome, the interventions focused on global outcomes (e.g., changes in IQ) that masked language-specic effects. These investigations documented that early intervention was effective for children with mental retardation and children at risk for poor developmental outcomes [Guralnick, 1989; Marfo and Dinero, 1991; Marfo and Kysela, 1985; Ramey, Campbell, and Ramey, 1999; Simeonsson, Cooper, and Scheiner, 1982]. As a result of these early efforts, the research agenda for language intervention involving children with mental re188

tardation over the past 10 15 years has been less concerned with whether intervention works than with what types of intervention work, at what points in development, with whom, and to what ends [Iacono, 1996, 1999; Yoder, Kaiser, and Alpert, 1991]. This has led to the development and evaluation of a large number of intervention strategies. Yoder, Kaiser, and Alpert, [1991] suggest that these strategies fall along a continuum, ranging from highly structured and didactic clinician-controlled approaches (i.e., direct instruction) to naturalistic, child-oriented approaches. The morestructured end includes behaviorally based teaching procedures, such as modeling and reinforcement. The opposite end of the continuum includes provision of input in the context of naturally occurring activities in which the child is intrinsically interested. Despite this diversity, the eld has been remarkably consistent in developing and garnering support for strategies consistent with the social-interactionist approach [Warren, 1993]. Several naturalistic strategies have received considerable empirical support. One of the most commonly studied naturalistic approaches, responsive interaction, is based on the premise that language will be learned best by participating in conversational exchanges with appropriate adult models. The focus of this approach is on enhancing the quality of the interaction between the child and an adult by following the childs lead (i.e., interests and initiations) and responding contingently to the childs behavior [Warren and Yoder, 1994; Yoder et al., 1995]. Milieu teaching, another naturalistic approach, involves the extension of principles derived from more naturalistic conversational contexts, with attention given to the arrangement of the environment to maximize opportunities for communication and thus language teaching. This strategy builds on the earlier concept of incidental teaching [Hart and Risely, 1980], which strategically utilizes the environment to naturally solicit childrens intentional communicative acts and thereby provide an opportunity to teach moire advanced language precisely when the child is most attentive. In milieu teaching, children are thought to learn language as a result of verbal and nonverbal prompts to produce language targets in the context of ongoing interactions and activities that are of interest to them, with adult feedback as necessary [Kaiser and Hester, 1994]. What distinguishes milieu teaching from responsive interaction is the formers use of elicited

prompts for initial production of target forms and functions [Warren and Yoder, 1997]. Enhanced milieu teaching (EMT) is a blend of milieu teaching characteristics, such as environmental arrangement, and responsive interaction techniques [Kaiser, Hancock, and Nietfeld, 2000]. EMT has been successful in promoting growth in language for children with mental retardation and children with autism using both researchers/clinicians and parents as the agent of change [Kaiser, Hancock, and Nietfeld, 2000; Hemmeter and Kaiser, 1994]. This approach also has been successful with preverbal or minimally verbal children, with gains noted in requesting, commenting, vocalization, and turn taking [Yoder, Warren, and Kim, 1994]. Agents of Change In the social-interactionist approach, language is thought to be learned from people who have meaningful social relationships with the child [Mahoney et al., 1998]. In recent instantiations of naturalistic intervention strategies, therefore, clinicians have been replaced (or supplemented) as the agents of change by parents and other people who interact with the child on a regular basis and who already have a meaningful relationship with the child. Indeed, family members have played an important role in intervention for children with mental retardation for some time [Kaiser, 1993; Mahoney and Powell, 1988; Lederer, 2001]. Parent involvement may be facilitative of language intervention because parents generally are a childs earliest language teachers, are most adept at identifying the childs intent and interest, and can extend the intervention into the childs daily life [Kaiser, 1993]. A number of studies have demonstrated that parents of children with mental retardation can be trained to be facilitators of language as well as other dimensions of child competence [Girolametto, Verbey, and Tannock, 1994; Iacono, Chan, and Waring, 1998; Lederer, 2001; Kaiser, 1993]. Moreover, research supports the claim that parental involvement, and especially intervention focusing on changing parental behavior toward the child and child behavior through clinician-based efforts, results in greater growth than interventions with little or no family participation [Shonkoff and Hauser-Cram, 1985]. Child language researchers also have begun to address the role that other family and community members might play in language intervention, and with

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promising results. One particularly interesting area of research is the use of peers to facilitate change (Goldstein et al., 1992; Goldstein and Strain, 1988; Ostrosky, Kaiser, and Odom, 1993]. It is thought that successful interactions with and attention from peers can be powerfully reinforcing for children, and that this may serve to increase the probability that these behaviors will be maintained [Ostrosky, Kaiser, and Odom, 1993]. Potential benets of involving peers in intervention include reducing the amount of one-to-one teacher instruction needed, providing exposure to the language models of more competent (than the target child) peers, encouraging independence as children can utilize peers as playmates more often than adults, and facilitating generalization of behaviors to new people [Ostrosky et al., 1993]. Research has shown that typically developing children can be taught to serve as facilitators in social communicative interactions with children with special needs [Goldstein and Strain, 1988; Ostrosky et al., 1993]. In an interesting extension of peer-based intervention, Hancock and Kaiser [1996] successfully trained siblings of children with mental retardation to utilize several milieu-teaching procedures, with corresponding growth observed in language skills for the targeted children. Contexts for Intervention In the past, language intervention typically was provided in either small groups or individually, in a decontextualized environment, such as a laboratory or a clinicians workroom. Increasingly, however, researchers, prompted by the social-interactionist and emergentist approaches, have begun to take more seriously the inuence of context on initial language learning and subsequent performance. Thus, there has been an expansion of the range of contexts that are viewed as appropriate venues for language intervention [Kaiser, 1993]. Kaiser [1993] also pointed out that even the physical setting for talk is important as it constrains the nature of the talk that can occur and be processed successfully by the child. Although empirical research comparing language outcomes as a function of instructional context has been limited, the available ndings suggest that classroom-based, small-group service delivery results in equal learning of language targets compared with individually administered intervention for preschool children, with greater generalization to home from the classroom-based condiMRDD RESEARCH REVIEWS

tion [Wilcox, Kouri, and Caswell, 1991]. Wilcox, Kouri, and Caswell, [1991] suggest that the classroom advantage may be due to the broad range of authentic activities experienced in this condition, more opportunities to observe and use the targeted linguistic items, and greater exposure to different conversational partners. In light of evidence of a shift recently to a more classroom-based service delivery model of language intervention [Cirrin and Penner, 1995], additional empirical studies that further strengthen these ndings are needed. The nature of the language task also can be an important context affecting language learning and use. Camarata and Nelson [1992], e.g., found that children with language impairments acquired linguistic targets more effectively when the adults recasting occurred in a conversational context compared with a more structured context in which the goal was to imitate. Additionally, children moved to spontaneous productions more quickly in the conversational context. The acquisition of particular linguistic structures varied across treatment approaches as well, however, suggesting that the outcome of intervention may depend, in part, on the language targets selected. Similarly, it has been shown that the level of linguistic sophistication displayed by children, both those developing typically and those with mental retardation, varies according to whether it is produced in conversational or narrative contexts [Abbeduto et al., 1995]. Such ndings are consistent with the socialinteractionist emphasis on meaningful contexts for learning and the emergentist emphasis on performance constraints on learning and suggest that the linguistic context in which language skills are assessed and intervention is delivered must be considered and more fully understood. Learner Characteristics It is predicted, by both the socialinteractionist approach and the emergentist approach, that the state of the learner will inuence the information he or she is capable of acquiring and the approach in which that information will be most effectively learned. The learners state at any point in time consists of the sum of his or her experiences and developmental achievements to that point. Consistent with these claims, Warren and colleagues [Brady and Warren, 2003; Warren and Yoder, 1997] argue for utilizing different strategies for language intervention at different points in a childs development. They suggest that no sinON

gle approach or family of techniques (e.g., milieu teaching) is appropriate for the wide range of skills that develop as the child progresses from initial prelinguistic communication to sophisticated linguistic development and reading [Warren and Yoder, 1997, p. 361). There also is evidence that the childs developmental level has a role in determining the type of intervention that is most benecial. For example, although a responsive interaction approach is effective for children with higher-level morphological and syntactic skills, it is less effective with children who have a mean length of utterance (MLU) under 2.0 [Yoder et al., 1995, 1995]. The latter are producing utterances with less than two morphemes or units of meaning per utterance on average. It may be that the superior attentional and memory resources available to children with MLUs above 2.0 allow them to benet from recasts and other adult responses that require comparison of the adult utterance with their own [Yoder et al., 1995]. In contrast, children who have an MLU of less than 2.0 may benet more from strategies entailing imitation and direct questions (e.g., what is this?). These latter strategies provide contextual support for the child to participate in the exchange and a shared focus of attention in which the adult can teach new labels. Similarly, Cole, Dale, and Mills [1991], in a comparison of preschool curricula exemplifying direct instruction or mediated learning, found that children with better cognitive and language skills showed greater gains in direct instruction, whereas lower-performing students made greater gains in mediated learning. There is also evidence that the childs previous interactions with the environment prepare him or her to respond more readily to some types of interventions than to other types. In a recent study, Warren and Yoder [1998] were interested in testing the effectiveness of an approach they call prelinguistic milieu teaching (PMT). PMT is designed to facilitate the transition from preintentional to intentional communication in nonspeaking children. In Piagetian terms, PMT encourages the coordination of schemes. In communication, this means the child doesnt simply focus on the object or person he or she wants to inuence but on both simultaneously. So, e.g., rather than look toward an object while vocalizing, the child is encouraged to look at the adult and then to the object while vocalizing.
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Warren and Yoder compared PMT with a responsive small group (RSG) intervention. The latter involved parallel play of a trainer with a small group of children, with the trainer simply responding to all communicative attempts from the children. Children with developmental delays between the ages of 17 and 36 months were assigned at random to either PMT or RSG. Pre- and posttreatment communication were measured in a variety of contexts with different interactants. PMT was found to be more effective than RSG, but only for some children. In particular, PMT was most effective for those children whose mothers had been found to be the most responsive to the childrens attempts at communication before the start of the intervention. A trend also was found for RSG to be more effective for those children whose mothers had been low in preintervention responsivity. These ndings are easily interpreted within an emergentist approach: different sets of experiences with caregivers lead children to represent language in terms of neural networks that differ in the types of linguistic input they are most prepared to process. Genetic Syndrome of the Learner With Mental Retardation Much of the research conducted with children with mental retardation in the area of language intervention has included children, who, as a group, were of varied or unknown etiologies. By focusing on etiologically heterogeneous groups, however, conclusions about the effectiveness of the intervention may not be appropriate for all children with mental retardation. In particular, the effectiveness of the intervention may be overestimated for some children/etiologies and underestimated for others [Iacono, 1999; Guralnick, 1997; Powell and Houghton, 1997]. In light of our knowledge of the varied proles and trajectories of language and communication development in populations of individuals with mental retardation due to differ genetic or organic causes, it follows that response to treatment may be unique and possibly etiology specic. Advancements in genetics over the past two decades have led to the identication of many genetic causes of mental retardation [Hodapp and Fidler, 1999], thereby providing new opportunities to study the interplay of nature and nurture through the interaction of syndrome and intervention [Plomin and Rutter, 1998]. Unfortunately, little is known about such interactions. Although a 190

number of pretreatment characteristics have been investigated and were shown to contribute to intervention outcomes such as severity of the handicap, age at the start of intervention, pretreatment abilities, and concomitant medical problems [Arnold, Myette, and Casto, 1986; Shonkoff and Hauser-Cram, 1985; Yoder, Kaiser, and Alpert, 1991], there is a paucity of research on syndrome-by-intervention interactions. Nevertheless, there has been sufcient research on the linguistic and cognitive phenotypes of several syndromes (e.g., Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, Williams syndrome) to allow for initial hypotheses about the types of interventions that are more or less likely to be effective for children with a particular syndrome [Abbeduto et al., 2003; Chapman et al., 1991; Mervis et al., 2003; Roberts, Mirrett, and Burchinal, 2001]. It has been well documented, e.g., that children with Down syndrome experience exceptional difculties in language development, most signicantly in the area of syntax [Chapman et al., 1991, 1997]. Because visual memory is a relative strength for this group of children in comparison to auditory memory [Chapman, 2003], it can be hypothesized that intervention strategies focusing on syntax that are predominantly auditory may prove less effective for this population than for children with stronger auditory skills (e.g., those with Williams syndrome). Etiology-specic intervention studies would provide clinically useful information as well as insights into the interaction of child and environmental characteristics throughout the course of development. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR LANGUAGE INTERVENTION? The past 30-plus years has seen a dramatic shift in the theoretical frameworks in which we view language and communication impairments and their treatment in children with mental retardation. The eld has eschewed behavioral approaches to teaching language in favor of approaches that consider functional language, the communicative context of the interaction, the dynamic relationships between those involved in the exchange, the contributions of the environment, and the unique child characteristics that may affect the learning process. Although this shift bears little resemblance to the tenets of the nativist approach, the latter has indirectly inuenced the shift by encouraging alternative approaches, especially the social-interactionist and emergentist ap

proaches. The shift also has been fueled by the advent of syndrome-based approaches in the eld of mental retardation research. Progress in the elds of language intervention and genetics allows for future research that will expand our understanding of the benet of specic intervention practices with more homogenous groups of children with mental retardation. This will allow for the examination of possible etiology-specic patterns of response to intervention. Such research will have important implications both theoretically and educationally for children with mental retardation. Additionally, future research will need to evaluate the long-term contributions of language intervention for language and academic achievement. Language and communication impairments place children at high risk for a number of academic and social learning difculties, and it is important that intervention considers the potential impact of language problems for later academic and social success [Fey, Catts, and Larrivee, 1995]. The continued integration of behavioral research with our understanding of biological and physiological aspects of disorders and associated communication impairments is likely to have a signicant impact on future research in the area of language intervention with children with mental retardation as well. The past four decades have been associated with tremendous growth in our understanding of the underlying physiological aspects of the brain that correspond with specic learning processes, as well as the genes associated with specic neurodevelopmental disorders [Plomin and Rutter, 1998]. The application of neuroimaging studies provides an opportunity to integrate different disciplines of study, and the knowledge gained from the study of atypically developing children will further our understanding of the genebrain-behavior associations in typically developing individuals as well [Reiss and Denckla, 1996]. Finally, future research on language intervention also must consider issues affecting the implementation of strategies with documented effectiveness. McConnell, McEvoy, and Odom [1992] suggest that the impact of any intervention reects the interaction of both the effectiveness of the intervention and the likelihood that it will be implemented. It has been noted that often there is a gap between research ndings on effective instruction and the adoption of these practices, due in part to a failure of researchers to communicate practical im

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plications that would help educators know more clearly how to carry out the interventions and their tendency to make recommendations that require resources (e.g., staff, materials, or technical support) that may not be available in the classroom [Schwartz and Carta, 1996]. In light of research that documents higher gains for children in classrooms in which best practice strategies are implemented [Schwartz and Carta, 1996], it is important that research ndings are disseminated in ways that both reach and inuence practitioners [Bricker, 1993; Rutter, 2000]. f REFERENCES
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