Early Intervention at the Interface: Semantic-Pragmatic Strategies for Facilitating Conversation with Children with Developmental Disabilities

Semantic-pragmatic strategies implemented by both therapists and parents are designed to remediate conversational impairments in young children with disabilities, but have been found to have varying degrees of success. This chapter employs relevance theory to understand the intentions and processing implications of using imitation, expansion, cloze questions, and follow-in wh-questions in naturally occurring conversations between adults and children with language delays, and thereby sheds light on the causes of this variability. The chapter also provides an overview of theoretical approaches to semantic-pragmatic disorders and the challenges of defining diagnostic categories, arguing that an ‘emergent’ account of pragmatic disorder can allow pragmatic impairments to be seen as the consequence of restricted resources that the strategies are designed to expand.