The effects of Fast ForWord Language on the phonemic awareness and reading skills of school-age children with language impairments and poor reading skills.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the efficacy of Fast ForWord Language (FFW-L) and 2 other interventions for improving the phonemic awareness and reading skills of children with specific language impairment with concurrent poor reading skills.


METHODS
A total of 103 children (age 6;0 to 8;11 [years;months]) with language impairment and poor reading skills participated. The children received either FFW-L computerized intervention, a computer-assisted language intervention (CALI), an individualized language intervention (ILI), or an attention control (AC) computer program.


RESULTS
The children in the FFW-L, CALI, and ILI conditions made significantly greater gains in blending sounds in words compared with the AC group at immediate posttest. Long-term gains 6 months after treatment were not significant but yielded a medium effect size for blending sounds in words. None of the interventions led to significant changes in reading skills.


CONCLUSIONS
The improvement in phonemic awareness, but not reading, in the FFW-L, CALI, and ILI interventions limits their use with children who have language impairment and poor reading skills. Similar results across treatment conditions suggest that acoustically modified speech was not a necessary component for improving phonemic awareness.
Loeb
Diane Frome
DF
The University of Kansas, Department of Speech-Language-Hearing, 3042 Dole Building, Lawrence, KA 66045-2181, USA. dianelo@ku.edu
Gillam
Ronald B
RB
Hoffman
LaVae
L
Brandel
Jayne
J
Marquis
Janet
J
D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003201:Computers; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D007807:Language Tests; D007808:Language Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D010349:Patient Compliance; D010700:Phonetics; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011932:Reading; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome