학령전기 및 학령기 초기 언어장애 아동의 어휘 중재 메타분석

Abstract

All languages are composed of a fundamental element, which is a set of words or vocabulary, that is used for the production and comprehension of sentences. Without knowledge of vocabulary, it is not possible to understand and produce language, making vocabulary development a crucial prerequisite for communication. Children naturally begin learning vocabulary from birth as they are exposed to various spoken sounds. However, even if the foundation for vocabulary development is somewhat established in the pre-school years, it continues to develop throughout the elementary school period. However, children with language disorders, including specific Developmental Language Disorders, Intellectual Disabilities, and Autism Spectrum Disorder, show deficits in vocabulary development compared to typically developing children. While there are various approaches to intervening vocabulary, this study aims to examine the trends in vocabulary intervention by categorizing them into story, smart media mediums, visual cues, semantic relationships, and play, and to investigate the intervention effects through effect size analysis. In this study, research data were collected and selected following the procedures of meta-analysis, including criteria for inclusion and exclusion. Subsequently, a coding analysis framework was developed, and coding was conducted to examine the characteristics of the intervention variables in the selected papers. The effect sizes of experimental studies were analyzed using CMA-version 4, and publication bias analysis was conducted using the Funnel plot. Single-subject studies presented the degree of intervention effectiveness using the percentage of nonoverlapping data points (PND). The results of the study showed that there has been active research on intervention since 2010, with numerous intervention papers being published. Among the intervention types, the use of story was the most common, followed by smart media medium, semantic relationship, and visual cue. However, studies targeting children with Autism Spectrum Disorder were significantly scarce. The meta-analysis of experimental studies indicated significant effect sizes for all types of vocabulary interventions, with story interventions showing the largest effect size. Depending on the execution variables, greater effects were observed in preschool and small-group studies. However, there were limitations in analyzing the results of single-subject studies, as there were no statistically significant differences in intervention effectiveness based on intervention type or execution variables. The focus of this study was to examine the trends in vocabulary intervention for children with language disorders and evaluate the intervention effects. However, the study had limitations due to the lack of research quantity, limitations in the analysis due to unclear descriptions of key intervention environments in the papers, and limitations of single-subject studies. Therefore, future research should not only involve quantitative evaluations but also employ qualitative evaluations using evidence-based practices. Additionally, it is necessary to analyze the effect sizes of single-subject studies using various non-parametric approaches to validate the findings from multiple perspectives.