Yoder, Paul J.; And Others (1991). Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, v34 n1 p155-67. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ427098
Reviewed: April 2012
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Milieu Teaching.
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Percentage of self-initiated utterances |
Milieu Teaching vs. Communication training |
Posttest |
Preschool students;
|
0.60 |
0.40 |
No |
-- | |
|
Mean length utterance (MLU) |
Milieu Teaching vs. Communication training |
Posttest |
Preschool students;
|
2.60 |
2.50 |
No |
-- | |
|
Rate of different words (per minute) |
Milieu Teaching vs. Communication training |
Posttest |
Preschool students;
|
3.30 |
3.20 |
No |
-- | |
|
The Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development- Receptive (SICD-R) age |
Milieu Teaching vs. Communication training |
Posttest |
Preschool students;
|
32.00 |
31.60 |
No |
-- | |
|
The Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development- Expressive (SICD-E) age |
Milieu Teaching vs. Communication training |
Posttest |
Preschool students;
|
31.20 |
30.80 |
No |
-- | |
|
Intelligibility (percentage of utterances intelligible) |
Milieu Teaching vs. Communication training |
Posttest |
Preschool students;
|
0.90 |
0.90 |
No |
-- | |
|
Rate of intelligibility utterances (per minute) |
Milieu Teaching vs. Communication training |
Posttest |
Preschool students;
|
8.10 |
8.10 |
No |
-- | |
|
Type token ratio (TTR) |
Milieu Teaching vs. Communication training |
Posttest |
Preschool students;
|
0.40 |
0.40 |
No |
-- | |
|
Rate of utterances (per minute) |
Milieu Teaching vs. Communication training |
Posttest |
Preschool students;
|
9.10 |
9.20 |
No |
-- |
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
The study took place in Davidson County, Tennessee. The language sessions were administered in the children’s classrooms or a nearby therapy room.
Forty students with developmental delays participated in this study. The students were from two schools, a university-based preschool and a public school. The students from the university- based preschool had developmental delays of at least 20% of their chronological age in at least one developmental area on the Denver Developmental Screening Test. The students from the public school had scores more than one and one half standard deviations below the mean on four out of seven developmental areas. The 40 students were randomly assigned to two conditions: 20 received instruction with the milieu teaching method, and 20 received instruction with the communication training program.
Milieu teaching is a naturalistic instruction method whereby the trainer follows the lead of the child in determining when to teach and what language form to elicit. In milieu teaching, the environment is arranged to include objects and activities that interest the child. Instructional strategies including incidental teaching and time-delay are utilized to encourage child communication. The goal of the milieu teaching method is that children learn to comprehend language structures from natural and informal adult modeling and active communication about the object or activity that is of interest to the child. When a child produces targeted language behavior during the activities, those utterances are consequated according to the child’s interest. For example, if a child requests a toy, giving the toy to the child serves as a functional consequence of the behavior. For students in both conditions, developmentally appropriate language targets were selected from the communication training program as the goals for the intervention. Children were separated into groups of two or three, and the sessions lasted 10 minutes per child. The treatment lasted for 60 sessions. The first half of each session consisted of a group activity (games, making collages, etc.); in the second half of the session, children could choose toys of interest to them from the variety of toys available.
The comparison condition consisted of another treatment, called communication training. Communication training involves a more structured drill-and-practice approach than the naturalistic approach espoused by milieu teaching and uses a predetermined set of rules to select the trials and language targets. Comprehension of language targets was taught explicitly in this condition rather than implicitly in milieu teaching. The communication training group used consequences that included verbal feedback and tangible rewards to increase the likelihood of child response. For children with more significant disabilities, the rewards sometimes were not tied directly to a child’s utterance. The sessions were conducted for similar amounts of time and with the same numbers of students in both the intervention and comparison conditions.
Nine eligible outcomes were assessed in this study, and all fall within the communication/ language competencies domain. For a more detailed description of these outcome measures, see Appendix B.
All language teachers received 12 hours of group training. They also received individual and small-group training (ranging from two to ten hours depending on their entry skills, abilities in executing their assigned method, and the children’s specific needs). During the intervention period, the language teachers were observed on a weekly basis, and weekly group meetings were held to support teachers and solve training and behavioral management problems.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
The WWC may review studies for multiple purposes, including different reports and re-reviews using updated standards. Each WWC review of this study is listed in the dropdown. Details on any review may be accessed by making a selection from the drop down list.
Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).
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