The development of appropriate language intervention programs for children with slow learning, who experience various difficulties in language, cognition, and learning, is an essential task. Accordingly, this study aimed to develop a metalinguistic-fo...
The development of appropriate language intervention programs for children with slow learning, who experience various difficulties in language, cognition, and learning, is an essential task. Accordingly, this study aimed to develop a metalinguistic-focused intervention program using short animated films familiar to children and to verify its effectiveness.
The participants were ten elementary school–aged children with slow learning residing in Ulsan Metropolitan City, who were assigned equally to an experimental group (n = 5) and a control group (n = 5). Pre- and post-tests were administered using the Language Scale for School-Age Children (LSSC), the Korean Language-based Reading Assessment (KOLRA), and the Receptive & Expressive Vocabulary Test (REVT) to evaluate language abilities. The experimental group received a short animated film–based metalinguistic intervention program twice a week for 10 weeks starting in May 2025, with each session lasting approximately 50 minutes for a total of 20 sessions, whereas the control group continued regular school instruction without any additional intervention.
The intervention utilized the short animated series “안녕 자두야 (Hello Jadoo)” and was structured to support systematic language learning through metalinguistic activities focusing on phonology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. The collected data were analyzed using paired-sample t-tests and Mann–Whitney U tests following normality testing, and qualitative analyses were conducted to examine linguistic changes and attitudes observed during the intervention.
The results indicated that the short animated film–based metalinguistic intervention program positively influenced the overall language abilities and vocabulary development of children with slow learning. Quantitative analyses showed significant improvements in all children in the experimental group, and qualitative evaluations confirmed positive changes in linguistic behavior and learning attitudes.