Summary of the Systematic Review

Article Citation

The Association Between Parental Mean Length of Utterance and Language Outcomes in Children With Disabilities: A Correlational Meta-Analysis

Sandbank, M., & Yoder, P. (2016).
American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25(2), 240-251.
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Sponsoring Body

Office of Special Education Programs

Article Quality Ratings

Read about Our Rating Process

Indicators of Review Quality

Yes The review states a clearly focused question/aim.
Yes Criteria for inclusion of studies are provided.
Yes Search strategy described in sufficient detail for replication.
No Included studies are assessed for study quality.
N/A Quality assessments are reproducible.
Yes Characteristics of the included studies are provided.

Article Details

Description

This is a correlational meta-analysis investigating the association between parental utterance length and language outcomes in children with disabilities.

Questions/Aims Addressed

The aim of the review was to determine the relation between parental MLU and language outcomes in children with developmental disabilities and to examine the extent to which the relation varied based on age (mental or chronological) or disability type.

Population

Children aged 12 years and younger with a reported diagnosis of a developmental disability known to delay language development.

Intervention/Assessment

Parental mean length of utterance (MLU).

Number of Studies Included

12 articles with 13 distinct populations

Years Included

Search not restricted by date

Conclusions from This Systematic Review

What are Conclusions?

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

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Treatment

"At present, numerous language intervention packages that have been demonstrated as effective for children with language disabilities recommend parental and clinician use of shortened speech.... The results of this review ... confirm that there is insufficient evidence to support such a recommendation. Moreover, the results of the subgroup analysis conducted for this review suggest that such a practice could be detrimental for children with autism" (pp. 249-250).

Keywords: Speech and Language, Parent/Caregiver-Mediated Interventions

"There is little evidence to suggest that longer and grammatically complete utterances negatively affect language outcomes for most children with disabilities. Moreover, it is possible that children with autism benefit from input that is longer than is usually afforded by telegraphic speech" (p. 249).

Keywords: Speech and Language

Spoken Language Disorders

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Treatment

Keywords: Morphology/Syntax, Multiple Populations

"There is little evidence to suggest that longer and grammatically complete utterances negatively affect language outcomes for most children with disabilities" (p. 249).

Keywords: Morphology/Syntax, Multiple Populations

"The results of the present review suggest that for children with developmental disabilities other than autism, this association [between length of parental utterance and child language outcomes] is weakly positive at best. The random-effects mean correlation coefficient was small (0.23) and the 95% [confidence interval] CI included zero. The clinical implications of this weak relation, which may have a true value of zero, are limited" (p. 248).

Keywords: Provider, Multiple Populations