Melodic Intonation Therapy

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Down syndrome (Trisomy 21) is the most common chromosomal disorder affecting one in every 691 children born in the United States ("down syndrome facts", 2012). Children born with Down syndrome show significant developmental delays in their motor, speech, and language development regardless of the disability (Partin Vinson, 2012). These children demonstrate delays in areas important for typical language development, including limited lexicon and intellectual disabilities (Berk, 2004). In terms of language development, children with Down syndrome typically have stronger abilities in receptive language than expressive language. Expressive language skills present particular challenges in these children, with the production of meaningful first words ranging from 13-36 months to 2-word phrases developing between 18-60+ months (Cunningham, 2010).
Vocabulary is an important aspect in understanding and expressing language and Caselli et al., and Mervis & Robinson explain that children with Down syndrome have been shown to demonstrate significant delays and hampered growth in expressive vocabulary (As cited in Berglund, Eriksson, & Johansson, 2001). There has not been much evidence on specific treatments to address children's limited vocabulary production. However, the research has focused on particular approaches that may facilitate vocabulary growth, which include vocal imitation through milieu teaching (Chapman, 1997), introducing signing as a way to inadvertently increase vocabulary (Clibbens, 2001;Berglund, Eriksson & Johansson, 2001; Chapman, 1997) and focused stimulation (Girolametto, Weitzman & Clements-Baartman, 1998).
Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT), a treatment mainly utilized for individuals with aphasia, uses the musical ...

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... of Clinical Psychiatry, 40(4), 201-203. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1980-28367-001
Norton, A., Zipse, L., Marchina, S., & Schlaug, G. (2009). Melodic intonation therapy: Shared insights on how it is done and why it might help. The Neurosciences and Music III: Disorders and Plasticity, 1169, 431-436. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04859.x
Partin Vinson, B. (2012). Classification of language abnormalities based on etiology and diagnostic labels. In Language Disorders Across the Lifespan (3rd ed., pp. 61-64). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar, Cengage Learning.
Wan, C. Y., Bazen, L., Baars, R., Libenson, A., Zipse, L., Zuk, J., Norton, A., & Schlaug, G. (2011). Auditory-motor mapping training as an intervention to facilitate speech output in non-verbal children with autism: A proof of concept study. PLoS ONE, 6(9), 1-7. doi: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025505

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