Background and aims Little evidence exists for the effectiveness of intervention for older adolescents and young adults with language disorders, particularly for those over 16 years. This study involves college-aged students aged 16–19 years with Language Disorder and Word-Finding Difficulties and investigates whether progress in word finding following 1:1 semantic intervention is greater than progress during a baseline period as measured by a standardised test. Methods Twenty-five college-aged students (20 males and 5 females) with Language Disorder and Word-Finding Difficulties (aged 16;4–18;4 years) participated in a single baseline design study comparing progress on the Test of Adolescent and Adult Word Finding during an intervention period with progress during a baseline period of equal length. Intervention was focused on semantics of different words from those in the Test of Adolescent and Adult Word Finding and was delivered 1:1 by the participants’ usual Speech and Language Therapist, 30 minutes per week, for eight weeks. Results The participants made significant progress in raw score on the Test of Adolescent and Adult Word Finding during both the baseline (d = 1.4) and intervention (d = 2.5) periods, but progress during the intervention period was significantly greater than during the baseline period (d = 1.16). Individual data showed reliable change for five participants during the baseline period and for 20 participants during the intervention period. At the start of the study, all participants had standard scores below 85, but after intervention, 10/25 participants scored above 85. Conclusions Four hours of semantic intervention led to significantly greater gains on a standardised test of word finding than during a baseline period of equal length in 16–19 year olds with Language Disorder and Word-Finding Difficulties. The words in the standardised test had not been included in the intervention, indicating generalised gains. Implications This study shows that intervention (at least for Word-Finding Difficulties) can be effective for this older age group of college-aged students with Language Disorder and therefore the effectiveness of Speech and Language Therapy services for this age group in a wider range of areas of language should also be investigated.

中文翻译：

---

语义干预对患有持续性语言障碍的大学生（16-19岁）发现单词的困难的有效性

背景和目的几乎没有证据表明干预对于年龄较大的青少年和语言障碍的年轻人尤其是16岁以上人群的有效性。这项研究的对象是年龄在16-19岁之间且语言障碍和单词查找困难的大学生，并调查了1：1语义干预后根据标准测试测得的单词查找进展是否大于基线期间的进展。方法：25名语言障碍和发现单词困难的大学生（20名男性和5名女性）（16; 4–18; 4岁）参加了一项基线设计研究，比较了青少年和成人考试的进度在干预期间发现字词，并且在等长基线期间得到进步。干预的重点是与青少年测试和成人单词发现测试中不同的词的语义，并由参与者通常的言语和语言治疗师以1：1的方式进行，每周30分钟，共8周。结果参与者在基线（d = 1.4）和干预（d = 2.5）期间在青少年和成人单词查找测试的原始分数上均取得了显着进步，但干预期间的进展显着大于基线期间（d = 1.16）。个体数据显示在基线期有5名参与者和干预期有20名参与者的可靠变化。在研究开始时，所有参与者的标准分数都低于85，但在干预之后，有10/25参与者的分数均高于85。结论比起在16-19岁患有语言障碍和发现单词困难的儿童，在四个小时的语义干预下，标准化的单词查找测试比在等长的基线期间获得了显着更大的收益。干预措施中未包括标准化测试中的字眼，表示普遍获益。启示这项研究表明，干预（至少对于发现单词的困难而言）可以有效地解决这一年龄段的语言障碍大学生的老年年龄段问题，因此，在更广泛的范围内，该年龄段的言语和语言治疗服务的有效性语言领域也应进行调查。