Grammar and Morphosyntax
This presentation will summarize the approaches and evidence for different grammatical interventions used with children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). I will discuss the approaches under two broad headings of implicit versus explicit approaches, first looking at the underlying hypotheses on which they are based and then looking in more detail at the different methods. In particular, I will present more details on the SHAPE CODING system, the explicit intervention method which I developed for teaching grammar to school-aged children with severe DLD. I will present the strength of the evidence for the different approaches and for which children and areas of grammar their effectiveness has been tested. I will then conclude with a discussion about how to identify grammatical targets and future directions for both research and practice as regards grammatical interventions.

Syntax Attuned Educator
Syntactic knowledge, the ability to understand a variety of grammatical structures within the context of a sentence, supports students’ reading fluency and comprehension of text. This session presents research on syntax and explains its critical role in comprehending complex text. Armed with this understanding, educators learn how to teach their students the functions of sentence parts—words, phrases, and clauses—in order to show them how to unpack the meaning of sentences they encounter in text. Participants will also learn tips on how they can support students’ reading fluency and comprehension by teaching phrasing and sentence structure with a focus on oral language and written expression.