Clinician-directed approach. The traditional language intervention method.

Language Intervention

Information about Language

Reading Disorder

Social Language

Best Books Information

Website Information

Information for Teachers and Speechies

[?] Subscribe To This Site

The clinician-directed approach

The clinician-directed approach is perhaps the dominant language intervention method used in the speech pathology profession.

Research has shown that clinician-directed methods have certain strengths but also certain flaws.

The clinician-directed approach allows us to control all aspects of language stimulation. This means that we guide the session and eliminate all distractions and focus the student's attention on the language task we have selected.

We decide which language form needs to be targeted, which materials we will use, in what order we will use the materials, how often the student needs to be reinforced, the type of reinforcement to be used, the contingencies to be used, and when to use those contingencies.

Whew...I'm just about out of breath.

By the way, just about every speech pathology student or clinician will have had exposure to the above terms. I know this, because as students we all had to write out seemingly endless language intervention plans, and use terms such as reinforcement, contingencies, rationale, etc.

I apologize, dear reader, for any...er, flashbacks I've caused in any current students or previous students who may read this.

I now subject my own speech pathology students to the rigours of the intervention plan.

It seems only fair.

That, and it also happens to be a highly effective teaching tool.

It's a little like Mr Miyagi
teaching Daniel san
wax on, wax off
in that the repetition
creates correct
habits from the beginning.

Intervention plans provides a
foundation for clinical decision making.

It's important to understand that the clinician-centered philosophy is based on the traditional behaviorist approach.

If you're really keen on learning more then please follow this link. I will warn you in advance though, it makes for pretty dry reading. It's best to stay here with me.

The clinician-directed approach (The pro's)

This method does have a number of advantages. First and foremost it focuses the student on the language skill we want them to use. In so doing, this method maximizes the student's practice and use of the target skill.

It's also a highly unnatural way of learning language. This, surprise surprise, is actually a good thing.

Let me explain.

Most of the children we see with language disorder are kids who fail to learn language well in the natural environment. This could happen for any number of reasons.

The point is this, if children have difficulty learning language in a natural context then a more systematic, structured, clinician-directed method may help them to learn language skills.

Clinician-directed methods work well for this reason. Language impaired children often do need the extra structure that this method provides.

The clinician-directed approach (The con's)

The biggest criticism about clinician-directed methods is that it's very difficult for students to transfer the new skills they've learnt in the clinic setting to real life.

That is, they are often unable to use their new language skills in their school and personal lives.

In technical terms, the language skill does not generalize well.

Perhaps one of the reasons new language skills don't generalize is that students are often taught those skills without a context to place them in.

And often the result is that the student, without a familiar context in which to learn the new concepts, fails to properly understand or retain the information.

We know from research that students with language impairment have a better chance of retaining new information if it's presented within a familiar context, such as a storybook.

The clinician-directed method doesn't address this important area very well.

Return from Clinician-Directed Approach to Oral Language Strategies

footer for clinician-directed approach page