Evidence of effectiveness of expressive grammatical
interventions in SLI
In contrast to efficacy, effectiveness is shown when an
intervention does what it was intended to under routine
conditions. Thus, treatment effectiveness evidence
is drawn from research into the impact of a treatment
in the less controlled ‘real world’ of clinical practice
(Dollaghan 2007). To date, there have been no reported
studies of treatment effectiveness specifically evaluating
intervention for expressive syntax and morphology.
However, there have been two studies of the effectiveness
of community speech therapy services in general,
with conflicting results. In a randomized controlled trial,
Glogowska et al. (2000) compared pre- and posttreatment
results of pre-schoolers attending community
speech pathology clinics in the UK. Children received,
on average, eight 45-min sessions over 8 months. They
found little effect of speech and language treatment. In
contrast, Broomfield and Dodd (2011) carried out a
randomized controlled trial of an entire cohort of 730
children up to 16 years of age who were referred to
one service over a 14-month period. They evaluated the
outcomes of treatment in general compared with no
treatment, using a waiting list control method.