Intensive speech and language disorders treatment of hydrocephalic children - a case study

Introduction: In this study, a 20 month old girl with the diagnosis of hydrocephalus and Delayed LanguageDisorder (DLD) is reported. Hydrocephalus is caused by excessive accumulation of fluid in the brain. Thiscondition results in movement, vision, learning and speech and language difficulties. Because of limited reportson the treatment results of speech and language disorders in young children with hydrocephalus, the aim of thisstudy is showing the progression of speech and language skills in this group of cases.Methods: In this report A-B single subject design is used, containing a baseline followed by a single interventioncondition. At the baseline evaluation, client showed problems in receptive and expressive language (semantics,phonology and pragmatics) and cognition.Results: Treatment is delivered during three months, twice a week. Each session lasts 45 minutes. Therapymethods are included modeling, auditory bombardment, play and parallel play. After this period of time clientshowed progression in prelinguistic skills, semantics, pragmatics, phonology and cognition.Conclusion: Results showed that the intensive and early treatment in children under 2 years old withdevelopmental language disorders has a significant effect. It seems that providing treatment in the high cerebralplasticity phase has a remarkable effect on development of speech, language and cognition skills inhydrocephalus children.

کلیدواژه ها:

Hydrocephalus ، Developmental Language Disorder ، Speech and Language Therapy