Following directions: Rehearsal and visualization strategies for children with specific language impairment

Abstract

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) may have inefficient memory or memory management for auditory and visual representation systems. This study sought to determine if strategy training would create any residual enhancement of these memory management systems. Data revealed that immediately following intervention, elementary students taught to use a rehearsal strategy and those taught to use a rehearsal/visualization strategy made significant gains over a traditional language therapy group on a standardized test of following directions. However, only the rehearsal/visualization group retained its gains over the traditional group eight months after the intervention. These findings support the long-term efficacy of systematic training via rehearsal/visualization to increase the ability of children with SLI to follow verbal directions.