ABSTRACT
Language intervention may be initiated in order to influence the child’s command of language in two ways: first, it may be aimed at providing language which is better suited to the child’s needs within a particular setting. For example, a child who experiences difficulties in having conversations because she rarely asks for opinions or information from others, may be taught how and when to ask questions. Similarly, a developmentally younger child who is undergoing toilet training, may be taught a word to indicate ‘I want to go to the toilet now!’ Here, the aims of the intervention are to help the child deal more effectively with different aspects of the environment, and the language which forms the focus of the intervention is selected accordingly. This is often termed a ‘functional’ approach and it is closely related to functional descriptions of language outlined in Chapter 3.
