Teaching alphabetic knowledge to pre-school children with developmental language delay and with typical language development

Alphabetic knowledge is a strong predictor of academic success. This multiple baseline across subjects study examined the effect of an intensive intervention on the alphabetic knowledge offourpre-school children ages 3;7 to 4;10. Two children with developmental language delay (DLD) and two with typical language development (TL) participated in a seven-week intervention target-ing recognition and production of letter names and sounds. Learning varied considerably among children. Higher accuracy was noted in name recognition than production. Teacher and parent reports suggested that this intervention increased children s interest in learning letter names at home and school.