Posted on Leave a comment

Trivia Night Answers and Winners

Thank you all who participated in yesterday’s Trivia Night!

Below you’ll find answers to round’s questions as well as the names of winners for each round.

Round 1: Early Child Development

1. Name at least 3 characteristics of child directed speech

These include: motherese, repetition, modeling speech, simple syntax, slowing rate, using a higher pitch as well as using an exaggerated intonation pattern.

2. What is the critical period hypothesis? It is a time period during which language acquisition takes place

3. Name at least 3 functions of communicative behavior during infancy

These include: obtaining attention, seeking approval, seeking assistance, seeking attachment just to name a few

4. Name 2 types of echolalia: Immediate and Delayed

5.  What is jargon and up until what age is it appropriate in children?  Jargon is not true speech but rather pre-linguistic “nonsensical” vocalizations which involve adult-like stress and intonation patterns.  Jargon usually begins to occur around 10-11 months of age in children and can typically last up until about 18 months of age give or take depending on the individual development rate of the child in question. 

Round 2: Internationally Adopted Children 

1. As related to internationally adopted (IA) children, what does the acronym CLM stand for and what does it mean?

CLM stands for Cognitive Language Mastery. It is the language needed for formal academic learning. This includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material including analyzing, synthesizing, judging and evaluating presented information. This level of language learning is essential for a child to succeed in school. CLM typically takes years and years to master, especially because, IA children did not have the same foundation of knowledge and stimulation as bilingual children in their birth countries.

2. ”The pattern of language acquisition in internationally adopted children is often referred to as a second first language acquisition” (Scott et al., 2011). Why? Because the first language (which is typically delayed and limited to begin with due to adverse effects of institutionalization) becomes completely obsolete as English is learned. So they end up learning L2 literally from scratch. 

3. Why CAN’T we treat Internationally Adopted children as bilingual speakers? Because they are typically adopted by parents who do not speak their birth language as a result of which they experience rapid birth language attrition and forget their birth language very rapidly.  

4. IA children may present with “normal” language abilities but still display significant difficulties in this area of functioning cognitive-academic and or social pragmatic communication (acceptable responses)

5.  Finish the following sentence: Any child with a known history of speech and language delays in the sending country should be considered to have true delays or disorders and should receive speech and language services after adoption.” (Glennen, 2009, p.52)

Round 3: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

1. FASD is an umbrella term for the range of effects that can occur due to maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy which may create physical, cognitive, behavioral, as well as learning/language deficits. It is NOT a clinical diagnosis. Please list at least 3 CURRENT terms under the FASD umbrella (see http://depts.washington.edu/fasdpn/htmls/fasd-fas.htm for details)

  • —Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) 
  • —Partial FAS 
  • ———Static Encephalopathy (alcohol exposed)
  • Neurobehavioral Disorder (alcohol exposed)

2. Name at least 3 characteristics of infants/toddlers with alcohol related deficits

  • — —May show failure to thrive
  • Increased sensitivity to sensory stimuli 
  • —Delayed speech/language milestones
  • Decreased muscle tone and poor muscle coordination 
  • —Poor self regulation

3. Since behavioral problems become more pronounced during the school years, many researchers found that the primary deficit of school aged children with FASD is in the area of (acceptable responses below)

  • —Daily Functioning Skills
  • —Self-regulation difficulties
  • —Problem Solving Issues
  • —Social/emotional problems

4. Finish the following sentence: adolescents with FASD have significant —DIFFICULTY LEARNING FROM Experience 

5. Why is early detection of alcohol related deficits important? Because it can lead to 

  • —Early and Appropriate Service Delivery
  • —Improved Adaptability
  • —Improved Functioning
  • Improved Outcomes

AND NOW THE WINNERS:

Round 1: Kristin Yanchuleff Simmons      
Round 2: Christina Pillar Cook 
Round 3: Kristin Yanchuleff Simmons 
 
Posted on 4 Comments

SLP Trivia Night: Round Two

1. As related to internationally adopted (IA) children, what does the acronym CLM stand for and what does it mean?

2. “The pattern of language acquisition in internationally adopted children is often referred to as a second first language acquisition” (Scott et al., 2011). Why?

3. Why CAN’T we treat Internationally Adopted children as bilingual speakers?

4. IA children may present with “normal” language abilities but still display significant difficulties in this area of functioning ___________.

5.  Finish the following sentence: “Any child with a known history of speech and language delays in the sending country should _____________________”.

Place your responses under this blog post and number each response for clarity.

The first person to get all answers correct will have their choice of product from my online store.

Posted on Leave a comment

Tuesday July 30th is Trivia Night!

This Tuesday is my turn to host SLP Trivia Night. Created by Kristine of Simply Speech (graphic by Carrie of  Carrie’s Speech Corner),  Trivia Night involves different SLP Bloggers hosting a night of trivia SLP related questions on their respective Facebook pages.  Jen of Speech Universe did it on July 16, Jocelyn of Ms. Jocelyn Speech did it on July 23rd and now it’s my turn.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, July 30th) I will be hosting this event on my Facebook Page at 9:00 p.m EST.  I am going to have three different rounds at

1. 9:00 pm: First round is on Early Child Development

2. 9:15 pm: Second round is on Internationally Adopted (IA)  Children

3. 9:30 pm: Third round is on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)

Each round will consist of 5 questions on each of the above topics. Each set of questions will be posted on my blog with a link provided on my Facebook Page.

Contestants will be asked to answer ALL 5 questions under the blog entry for a chance to win.

In each round the first person to get all 5 questions correct will have their choice of products from my online store.  I hope to see you all there for SLP Trivia Night!

Posted on Leave a comment

New Product: Speech Language Assessment of Older Internationally Adopted Children

IAToday  I am very excited to introduce to you my brand new product which has been long in the making.  “Speech Language Assessment of Older Internationally Adopted Children”. In the past I have written a number of articles and blog posts as well as done a number of  presentations on related topics. I finally decided that it’s a great time to put it all together and created this 65 slide presentation which succinctly explains how to assess speech language abilities of older Internationally Adopted (IA) Children.

Presentation Summary

—Institutionalization affects every child’s speech-language development. Signs of delay can be obvious or obscure; show immediately or years later. This presentation will review the latest literature regarding the language abilities of post-institutionalized children adopted at older ages. It will discuss language development of older children post-adoption, explain the difference between conversational and cognitive language competencies, offer pre-adoption recommendations, address select pre-assessment preparations as well as to provide recommendations on best assessment practices for these children. Continue reading New Product: Speech Language Assessment of Older Internationally Adopted Children
Posted on Leave a comment

Introduction to Social Pragmatic Language Disorders

SPLDI have been making a lot of materials lately in order to disseminate information on a variety of helpful topics including insurance coverage for speech language services, improving feeding abilities in picky eaters, the importance of oro-facial observations during speech- language assessments  and so on. I’ve also created an “introduction” series, which offers handouts on popular topics of interest, most recently on the topic of Auditory Processing Disorders (APD), which can be currently found in my online store HEREContinue reading Introduction to Social Pragmatic Language Disorders

Posted on Leave a comment

Recognizing the Warning Signs of Social Emotional Difficulties in Language Impaired Toddlers and Preschoolers

emd toddlersToday I am exited to tell you about the new product I created in honor of Better Speech and Hearing Month. 

It is a 45 slide presentation created for speech language pathologists to explain the connection between late language development and the risk of social emotional disturbances in young children 18 months- 6 years of age.

Learning Objectives:

Posted on 1 Comment

App Giveaway: Are you Sleeping?

Today Thanks to the generosity of Lavelle Carlson of SpeechPathologyApps.com I am giving away multiple copies of their newest app “Are You Sleeping”.

Continue reading App Giveaway: Are you Sleeping?

Posted on Leave a comment

New Webinar: Inattention, Hyperactivity and Impulsivity in At-Risk Children: Differential Diagnosis of ADHD in Speech Language Pathology

 Inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and impulsivity are the most common presenting behavioral problems in at-risk children. This workshop will describe select speech language causes of hyperactivity and inattentiveness in children beyond the ADHD diagnosis, including traumatic brain injury, auditory processing disorders, severe language disorders, as well as social pragmatic language deficits.It will review case examples to illustrate the importance of differential diagnosis. Implications for assessment as well as the need for relevant referrals will be discussed.

When: Thursday, January 17, 2013, 4-5 p.m. ET

Where: Your computer*

Presenter: Tatyana Elleseff, MA, CCC-SLP

Cost: FREE

Who Should Attend: Anyone interested in discussing behavioral problems in at-risk children.

How: Register Here

Posted on 3 Comments

Understanding the risks of social pragmatic deficits in post institutionalized internationally adopted (IA) children.

Image may contain: 1 person, textThis article was originally published in December 24, 2012 issue of Advance for Speech Language Pathologists and Audiologists under the title: “Adoption & Pragmatic Problems” (pp 6-9) 

Photo credits: Leonid Khavin

Cover Model: Bella Critelli

According to U.S. State Department, 233,934 children were adopted internationally between 1999-2011, with a majority 76 percent (or approximately 177,316) of these children being under 3 years of age.

To date a number of studies have come out about various aspects of these children’s language development, including but not limited to, rate of new language acquisition, patterns of typical vs. atypical language acquisition, as well as long-term language outcomes post-institutionalization.

While significant variability was found with respect to language gains and outcomes of internationally adopted children, a number of researchers found a correlation between age of adoption and language outcomes, namely, children adopted at younger ages (under 3 years of age) seem to present with better language/academic outcomes in the long-term vs. children adopted at older ages.1,2,3,4

Indeed, it certainly stands to reason that the less time children spend in an institutional environment, the better off they are in all areas of functioning (cognitive, emotional, linguistic, social, etc.). The longer the child stays in an institutional environment, the greater is the risk of greater delays, including a speech and language delay.

However, children adopted at younger ages, may also present with significant delays in select areas of functioning, many years post-adoption. Continue reading Understanding the risks of social pragmatic deficits in post institutionalized internationally adopted (IA) children.

Posted on Leave a comment

Stimulating Language Abilities of Internationally Adopted Children: Fun with Ready-Made Fall and Halloween Bingo

  There are many fun language based activities parents can do at home with their newly (and not so newly) internationally adopted  preschool and school aged children in the fall. One of my personal favorites is bingo. Boggles World, an online ESL teacher resource actually has a number of ready made materials, flashcards, and worksheets which can be adapted for such purposes. For example, their Fall and Halloween Bingo comes with both call out cards and a 3×3 and a 4×4 (as well as 3×3) card generator/boards. Clicking the refresh button will generate as many cards as you need, so the supply is endless! You can copy and paste the entire bingo board into a word document resize it and then print it out on reinforced paper or just laminate it.

Fall vocabulary words includecorn, crops, farmer, scarecrow, apples, acorns, oak leaf, maple leaves, ginkgo leaves, grapes, mushrooms, salmon, geese, squirrel, jacket, turkey, Jack-O’-Lantern, rake, pumpkins, harvest moon, hay, chestnuts, crow, and sparrow

Halloween vocabulary words includewitch, ghost, skeleton, skull, spider, owl, Jack-O’-Lantern, devil, cobweb, graveyard, clown, pirate, robot, superhero, mummy, vampire, bat, black cat, trick or treaters, alien, werewolf

Now the fun begins!

Some suggested activities:

Practice Vocabulary Labeling: Label the words for newly adopted IA children and get them to say the words after you.

Practice Simple Sentences: Make up simple sentences such as A spider lives in a cobweb or  A squirrel is eating an acorn.

Practice Rhyming:  what rhymes with cat/bat/ trick/leaf/ rake/moon?

For those children who are having articulation (speech) difficulties practice saying  words with select sounds (/ch/, /sh/, /l/, etc) to improve their  intelligibility (pronunciation)

Practice Categorization Skills: Name some fall words, Halloween words, name some popular halloween costumes, name some popular fall activities, etc

Practice naming Associations: what goes with a witch (broom), what goes with a squirrel (acorn), etc

Practice expanding vocabulary by providing Attributes (object characteristics):  Take a noun-word (thing) such as “squirrel” and answer some questions about it: what is it? what does it do? where do you find it? what are its parts? What color/shape is it? does it make any sounds? what goes with it.  Here’s one example, (I see a pumpkin. It’s a fruit/vegetable that you can plant, grow and eat. You find it on a farm. It’s round and orange and is the size of a ball. Inside the pumpkin are seeds. You can carve it and make a jack o lantern out of it).

Practice expanding language by providing relevant  Definitions: Tell me what a skeleton is. Tell me what a scarecrow is.

Practice improving their Problem Solving abilities by naming Similarities and Differences among semantically related items: How are pumpkin and apple alike? How are they different?

Help them understand that many words can have more than one meaning and  explain Multiple Meaning words to them:   A bat, witch, clown, can mean _____ and also mean _________

So join in the fun and start playing today! 

Resources:

Bogglesworld Halloween Bingo Board and Cards http://bogglesworldesl.com/halloweenbingo.htm

Bogglesworld Fall Bingo Board and Cards http://bogglesworldesl.com/autumn_bingo.htm