Linguistic pragmatics and language intervention strategies

Abstract

The recent research focus on pragmatics leads to the consideration of issues of language use that have fundamental practical implications for language assessment and intervention. Specifically, the pragmatic orientation suggests changes in the content of language assessments, by evaluating various communicative functions the child expresses, and modifications in the process of language assessment, by encouraging both the initiating and responding dimensions of the child's communicative behavior. Furthermore, the pragmatic focus suggests changes in the process of intervention. The primary goal of intervention becomes facilitation of generalized communicative functions for which syntactic structures and semantic content are only the tools. And the pragmatic framework suggests guidelines for what constitute appropriate reinforcers that sustain rather than interrupt communicative interactions.