CHANGES IN THE GENERATIVITY AND USE OF SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS CONCURRENT WITH MILIEU LANGUAGE INTERVENTION

Changes associated with a milieu language intervention implemented to teach productive semantic relationships (e.g., action-object combinati ons) were investigated. Subjects were 11 young children with borderlin e to moderate levels of mental retardation, all in the early stages of language development. Following a baseline period, each subject recei ved three to four training sessions per week in a small group interact ive play situation. Measures of generativity were analyzed via pre/pos t group comparisons. Concurrent with the intervention subjects showed substantial gains in their ability to generatively produce semantic re lationships in the intervention context and across settings, adults, a nd interaction styles. Subjects also correctly responded to an increas ing proportion of target probe questions in both the intervention and generalization settings. The results suggest that, for most of the sub jects, milieu teaching was associated with enhanced generativity and u se of semantic relationships.