Clinical applications of recasting : review and theory

Abstract

Recasts have been shown to be successful in promoting the language development of normal children. A RECAST is a discourse adjustment through which basic semantic information is retained while syntactic structure is altered. Little research to date has addressed the power of recasts in advancing the development of specifically language-impaired children. The language-impaired child is believed to be delayed, but not deviant from the normal child, in acquiring language. For this reason, it is suggested that the same kind of linguistic input beneficial to normal children should be beneficial to language-impaired children. This paper includes a review of the literature on the effects of recasts on normal language acquisition. The rare event cognitive comparison model (Nelson, 1980; 1987) is presented in an attempt to describe how a child might use recasts to help acquire language. Finally, a section on the potential use of recasts to aid in the development of language-impaired children is presented.