Treatment Targets for Co-Occurring Speech-Language Impairment: A Case Study

Purpose The intersection of speech and language impairments is severely understudied. Despite repeatedly documented overlap and co-occurrence, treatment research for children with combined phonological and morphosyntactic deficits is limited. Especially, little is known about optimal treatment targets for combined phonological–morphosyntactic intervention. We offer a clinically focused discussion of the existing literature pertaining to interventions for children with combined deficits and present a case study exploring the utility of a complex treatment target in word-final position for co-occurring speech and language impairment. Method Within a school setting, a kindergarten child (aged 5;2 [years;months]) with co-occurring phonological disorder and developmental language disorder received treatment targeting a complex consonant cluster in word-final position inflected with 3rd-person singular morphology. Results For this child, training a complex consonant cluster in word-final position resulted in ge...