There are a large number of interventions that have been recommended for school-aged children who have auditory processing disorder (APD). This literature review focuses on eight studies referring to APD interventions and discusses major themes including the difference in populations used as the participants, if Fast ForWord – Language is beneficial to children with language impairments and APD and some articles could draw no concrete conclusions based on their results. Limitations of the data and ideas for future research are also identified.
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All eight studies have used school-aged children as their participants, with seven using children from six years old, and Ross-Swain’s study (2007) using children as young …show more content…
Fey, Finestack, Gajewski, Popescu and Lewine (2010) found that FFW-L worked for a short period of time before showing no real changes in the children with language impairments when their results were compared to other children involved in different interventions. Gillam et al. (2008) had the same results, finding that FFW-L was effective, but no more than other interventions were with language-impaired children.
In contrast, Loo, Bamiou, Campbell and Luxon’s (2010) discovered that the FFW-L program was able to benefit children with a language impairment, however the improvements were not sustained once the children stopped participating in the program. The same findings were also found in a systematic review, though it was in relation to children with APD instead of children with a language impairment (Fey, et al., 2011). It stated that in one study, six of the eight children showed improvements after using FFW-L. However, when the children were re-tested after one year, only one child had sustained the improvement that they had previously made (Fey, et al., …show more content…
In the study directed by Fey, Finestack, Gajewski, Popescu and Lewine (2010), they came to the conclusion that their results needed to be interpreted with caution. They also stated that their findings did not support their hypothesis of determining whether FFW-L can be used as an additional treatment for a narrative-based language intervention (NBLI) with children who have a language impairment (Fey, et al., 2010).
Another article stated that the relationship between the improvements made by children with a language impairment could not be directly contributed to the Fast ForWord auditory program (Fey, et al., 2011). This article also indicated that no conclusion could be drawn from the evidence provided (Fey, et al., 2011). The idea that other factors could be contributing to the gains made by children is also suggested in the article ‘The Efficacy of Fast ForWord Language Intervention in School-Aged Children with Language Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Trial’ (Gillam, et al., 2008). The results from this study state that in conjunction with the auditory program, children with a language impairment need to be given opportunities to interact with peers who have the same ability as themselves (Gillam, et al., 2008). It also indicates