The CodeTaal Intervention: Its Effectiveness, Suitability and Treatment’s Fidelity

Abstract

This thesis investigates the effectiveness, treatment fidelity and suitability of a cross-linguistic intervention for Dutch children with DLD acquiring EFL. Similar interventions already exist for L1 acquisition, and recent research has shown that children with DLD benefit from explicit instruction and support of cross-linguistic transfer, but it is still unclear how this kind of intervention would work for Dutch children with DLD learning EFL. Students from two special-education schools participated. To investigate the effectiveness, scores from a grammar test were analysed. Results show no significant difference between the control and intervention group. To assess the suitability, proficiency scores and participation scores were correlated. It is found that Dutch proficiency correlates positively with coping well in the intervention. Additionally, results show that there are no significant differences in the participation between hearing-impaired and non-hearing-impaired participants. Lastly, a semi-structured interview, with the teacher of the relevant class, and observation notes were analysed to investigate the treatment fidelity. The analysis shows that three major themes need to be considered before implementing the intervention: learning ability, time, and MetaTaal. A limitation of this thesis is the short time in which the interventions were carried out. Further research on the effectiveness and suitability of the intervention is needed.