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Have you Worked on Morphological Awareness Lately?

Last year an esteemed colleague, Dr. Roseberry-McKibbin posed this question in our Bilingual SLPs Facebook Group:  “Is anyone working on morphological awareness in therapy with ELLs (English Language Learners) with language disorders?”

Her question got me thinking: “How much time do I spend on treating morphological awareness in therapy with monolingual and bilingual language disordered clients?” The answer did not make me happy!

So what is morphological awareness and why is it important to address when treating monolingual and bilingual  language impaired students?

Morphemes are the smallest units of language that carry meaning. They can be free (stand alone words such as ‘fair’, ‘toy’, or ‘pretty’) or bound (containing prefixes and suffixes that change word meanings – ‘unfair’ or ‘prettier’).

Morphological awareness refers to a ‘‘conscious awareness of the morphemic structure of words and the ability to reflect on and manipulate that structure’’ (Carlisle, 1995, p. 194). Also referred to as “the study of word structure” (Carlisle, 2004), it is an ability to recognize, understand, and use affixes or word parts (prefixes, suffixes, etc) that “carry significance” when speaking as well as during reading tasks. It is a hugely important skill for building vocabulary, reading fluency and comprehension as well as spelling (Apel & Lawrence, 2011; Carlisle, 2000; Binder & Borecki, 2007; Green, 2009). 

So why is teaching morphological awareness important? Let’s take a look at some research.

Goodwin and Ahn (2010) found morphological awareness instruction to be particularly effective for children with speech, language, and/or literacy deficits. After reviewing 22 studies Bowers et al. (2010) found the most lasting effect of morphological instruction was on readers in early elementary school who struggled with literacy.

Morphological awareness instruction mediates and facilitates vocabulary acquisition leading to improved reading comprehension abilities (Bowers & Kirby, 2010; Carlisle, 2003, 2010; Guo, Roehrig, & Williams, 2011; Tong, Deacon, Kirby, Cain, & Parilla, 2011).

Unfortunately as important morphological instruction is for vocabulary building, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling, it is often overlooked during the school years until it’s way too late. For example, traditionally morphological instruction only beings in late middle school or high school but research actually found that in order to be effective one should actually begin teaching it as early as first grade (Apel & Lawrence, 2011).

So now that we know that we need to target morphological instruction very early in children with language deficits, let’s talk a little bit regarding how morphological awareness can be assessed in language impaired learners.

When it comes to standardized testing, both the Test of Language Development: Intermediate – Fourth Edition (TOLD-I:4) and the Test of Adolescent and Adult Language–Fourth Edition (TOAL-4) have subtests which assess morphology as well as word derivations. However if you do not own either of these tests you can easily create non-standardized tasks to assess  morphological awareness.

Apel, Diehm, & Apel (2013) recommend multiple measures which include:  phonological awareness tasks, word level reading tasks, as well as reading comprehension tasks.

Below are direct examples of tasks from their study:

MATs

One can test morphological awareness via production or decomposition tasks. In a production task a student is asked to supply a missing word, given the root morpheme (e.g., ‘‘Sing. He is a great _____.’’ Correct response: singer).  A decomposition task asks the student to identify the correct root of a given derivation or inflection. (e.g., ‘‘Walker. How slow can she _____?’’ Correct response: walk).

Another way to test morphological awareness is through completing analogy tasks since it involves both  decomposition and production components (provide a missing word based on the presented pattern—crawl: crawled:: fly: ______ (flew).

Still another way to test morphological awareness with older students is through deconstruction tasks: Tell me what ____ word means? How do you know? (The student must explain the meaning of individual morphemes).

Finding the affix: Does the word ______ have smaller parts?

So what are the components of effective morphological instruction you might ask?

Below is an example of a ‘Morphological Awareness Intervention With Kindergarteners and First and Second Grade Students From Low SES Homes’ performed by Apel & Diehm, 2013:

Apel and Diem 2011

Here are more ways in which this can be accomplished with older children:

  • Find the root word in a longer word
  • Fix the affix (an additional element placed at the beginning or end of a root, stem, or word, or in the body of a word, to modify its meaning)
    • Affixes at the beginning of words are called “prefixes”
    • Affixes at the end of words are called “suffixes
  • Word sorts to recognize word families based on morphology or orthography
  • Explicit instruction of syllable types to recognize orthographical patterns
  • Word manipulation through blending and segmenting morphemes to further solidify patterns

Now that you know about the importance of morphological awareness, will you be incorporating it into your speech language sessions? I’d love to know!

Until then, Happy Speeching!

References:

  • Apel, K., & Diehm, E. (2013). Morphological awareness intervention with kindergarteners and first and second grade students from low SES homes: A small efficacy study. Journal of Learning Disabilities.
  • Apel, K., & Lawrence, J. (2011). Contributions of morphological awareness skills to word-level reading and spelling in first-grade children with and without speech sound disorder. Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 54, 1312–1327.
  • Apel, K., Brimo, D., Diehm, E., & Apel, L. (2013). Morphological awareness intervention with kindergarteners and first and second grade students from low SES homes: A feasibility study. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 44, 161-173.
  • Binder, K. & Borecki, C. (2007). The use of phonological, orthographic, and contextualinformation during reading: a comparison of adults who are learning to read and skilled adult readers. Reading and Writing, 21, 843-858.
  • Bowers, P.N., Kirby, J.R., Deacon, H.S. (2010). The effects of morphological instruction on literacy skills: A systematic review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 80, 144-179.
  • Carlisle, J. F. (1995). Morphological awareness and early reading achievement. In L. B. Feldman (Ed.), Morphological aspects of language processing (pp. 189–209). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Carlisle, J. F. (2000). Awareness of the structure and meaning of morphologically complex words: Impact on reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal,12,169-190.
  • Carlisle, J. F. (2004). Morphological processes that influence learning to read. In C. A. Stone, E. R. Silliman, B. J. Ehren, & K. Apel (Eds.), Handbook of language and literacy. NY: Guilford Press.
  • Carlisle, J. F. (2010). An integrative review of the effects of instruction in morphological awareness on literacy achievement. Reading Research Quarterly, 45(4), 464-487.
  • Goodwin, A.P. & Ahn, S. (2010). Annals of Dyslexia, 60, 183-208.
  • Green, L. (2009). Morphology and literacy: Getting our heads in the game. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the schools, 40, 283-285.
  • Green, L., & Wolter, J.A. (2011, November). Morphological Awareness Intervention: Techniques for Promoting Language and Literacy Success. A symposium presentation at the annual American Speech Language Hearing Association, San Diego, CA.
  • Guo, Y., Roehrig, A. D., & Williams, R. S. (2011). The relation of morphological awareness and syntactic awareness to adults’ reading comprehension: Is vocabulary knowledge a mediating variable? Journal of Literacy Research, 43, 159-183.
  • Tong, X., Deacon, S. H., Kirby, J. R., Cain, K., & Parrila, R. (2011). Morphological awareness: A key to understanding poor reading comprehension in English. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103 (3), 523-534.
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Thematic Language Intervention with Language Impaired Children Using Nonfiction Texts

FullSizeRender (3)In the past a number of my SLP colleague bloggers (Communication Station, Twin Sisters SLPs, Practical AAC, etc.) wrote posts regarding the use of thematic texts for language intervention purposes. They discussed implementation of fictional texts such as the use of children’s books and fairy tales to target linguistic goals such as vocabulary knowledge in use, sentence formulation, answering WH questions, as well as story recall and production.

Today I would like to supplement those posts with information regarding the implementation of intervention based on thematic nonfiction texts to further improve language abilities of children with language difficulties.

First, here’s why the use of nonfiction texts in language intervention is important. While narrative texts have high familiarity for children due to preexisting, background knowledge, familiar vocabulary, repetitive themes, etc. nonfiction texts are far more difficult to comprehend. It typically contains unknown concepts and vocabulary, which is then used in the text multiple times. Therefore lack of knowledge of these concepts and related vocabulary will result in lack of text comprehension. According to Duke (2013) half of all the primary read-alouds should be informational text. It will allow students to build up knowledge and the necessary academic vocabulary to effectively participate and partake from the curriculum.

So what type of nonfiction materials can be used for language intervention purposes. While there is a rich variety of sources available, I have had great success using Let’s Read and Find Out Stage 1 and 2 Science Series with clients with varying degrees of language impairment.

Here’s are just a few reasons why I like to use this series.

  • They can be implemented by parents and professionals alike for different purposes with equal effectiveness.
  • They can be implemented with children fairly early beginning with preschool on-wards 
  • The can be used with the following pediatric populations:
    • Language Disordered Children
    • Children with learning disabilities and low IQ
    • Children with developmental disorders and genetic syndromes (Fragile X, Down Syndrome, Autism, etc.)
    • Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
    • Internationally adopted children with language impairment
    • Bilingual children with language impairment
    • Children with dyslexia and reading disabilities
    • Children with psychiatric Impairments
  • The books are readily available online (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc.) and in stores.
  • They are relatively inexpensive (individual books cost about $5-6).
  • Parents or professionals who want to continuously use them seasonally can purchase them in bulk at a significantly cheaper price from select distributors (Source: rainbowresource.com)
  • They are highly thematic, contain terrific visual support, and are surprisingly versatile, with information on topics ranging from animal habitats and life cycles to natural disasters and space.
  • They contain subject-relevant vocabulary words that the students are likely to use in the future over and over again (Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986).
  • The words are already pre-grouped in semantic clusters which create schemes (mental representations) for the students (Marzano & Marzano, 1988).

For example, the above books on weather and seasons contain information  on:

1. Front Formations
2. Water Cycle
3. High & Low Pressure Systems

Let’s look at the vocabulary words from Flash, Crash, Rumble, and Roll  (see detailed lesson plan HERE). (Source: ReadWorks):

Word: water vapor
Context: Steam from a hot soup is water vapor.

Word: expands
Context: The hot air expands and pops the balloon.

Word: atmosphere
Context:  The atmosphere is the air that covers the Earth.

Word: forecast
Context: The forecast had a lot to tell us about the storm.

Word: condense
Context: steam in the air condenses to form water drops.

These books are not just great for increasing academic vocabulary knowledge and use. They are great for teaching sequencing skills (e.g., life cycles), critical thinking skills (e.g., What do animals need to do in the winter to survive?), compare and contrast skills (e.g., what is the difference between hatching and molting?) and much, much, more!

So why is use of nonfiction texts important for strengthening vocabulary knowledge and words in language impaired children?

As I noted in my previous post on effective vocabulary instruction (HERE): “teachers with many struggling children often significantly reduce the quality of their own vocabulary unconsciously to ensure understanding” (Excerpts from Anita Archer’s Interview with Advance for SLPs).  

The same goes for SLPs and parents. Many of them are under misperception that if they teach complex subject-related words like “metamorphosis” or “vaporization” to children with significant language impairments or developmental disabilities that these students will not understand them and will not benefit from learning them.

However, that is not the case! These students will still significantly benefit from learning these words, it will simply take them longer periods of practice to retain them!

By simplifying our explanations, minimizing verbiage and emphasizing the visuals, the books can be successfully adapted for use with children with severe language impairments.  I have had parents observe my intervention sessions using these books and then successfully use them in the home with their children by reviewing the information and reinforcing newly learned vocabulary knowledge.

Here are just a few examples of prompts I use in treatment with more severely affected language-impaired children:

  • —What do you see in this picture?
  • —This is a _____ Can you say _____
  • What do you know about _____?
  • —What do you think is happening? Why?
  • What do you think they are doing? Why?
  • —Let’s make up a sentence with __________ (this word)
  • —You can say ____ or you can say ______ (teaching synonyms)
  • —What would be the opposite of _______? (teaching antonyms)
  • — Do you know that _____(this word) has 2 meanings
    • —1st meaning
    • —2nd meaning
  • How do ____ and _____ go together?

Here are the questions related to Sequencing of Processes (Life Cycle, Water Cycle, etc.)

  • —What happened first?
  • —What happened second?
  • —What happened next?
  • —What happened after that?
  • —What happened last?

As the child advances his/her skills I attempt to engage them in more complex book interactions—

  • —Compare and contrast items
  • — (e.g. objects/people/animals)
  • —Make predictions and inferences about will happen next?
  • Why is this book important?

“Picture walks” (flipping through the pages) of these books are also surprisingly effective for activation of the student’s background knowledge (what a student already knows about a subject). This is an important prerequisite skill needed for continued acquisition of new knowledge. It is important because  “students who lack sufficient background knowledge or are unable to activate it may struggle to access, participate, and progress through the general curriculum” (Stangman, Hall & Meyer, 2004).

These book allow for :

1.Learning vocabulary words in context embedded texts with high interest visuals

2.Teaching specific content related vocabulary words directly to comprehend classroom-specific work

3.Providing multiple and repetitive exposures of vocabulary words in texts

4. Maximizing multisensory intervention when learning vocabulary to maximize gains (visual, auditory, tactile via related projects, etc.)

To summarize, children with significant language impairment often suffer from the Matthew Effect (—“rich get richer, poor get poorer”), or interactions with the environment exaggerate individual differences over time

Children with good vocabulary knowledge learn more words and gain further knowledge by building of these words

Children with poor vocabulary knowledge learn less words and widen the gap between self and peers over time due to their inability to effectively meet the ever increasing academic effects of the classroom. The vocabulary problems of students who enter school with poorer limited vocabularies only worsen over time (White, Graves & Slater, 1990). We need to provide these children with all the feasible opportunities to narrow this gap and partake from the curriculum in a more similar fashion as typically developing peers. 

Helpful Smart Speech Therapy Resources:

References:

Duke, N. K. (2013). Starting out: Practices to Use in K-3. Educational Leadership, 71, 40-44.

Marzano, R. J., & Marzano, J. (1988). Toward a cognitive theory of commitment and its implications for therapy. Psychotherapy in Private Practice 6(4), 69–81.

Stahl, S. A. & Fairbanks, M. M. “The Effects of Vocabulary Instruction: A Model-based Metaanalysis.” Review of Educational Research 56 (1986): 72-110.

Strangman, N., Hall, T., & Meyer, A. (2004). Background knowledge with UDL. Wakefield, MA: National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum.

White, T. G., Graves, M. F., & Slater W. H. (1990). Growth of reading vocabulary in diverse elementary schools: Decoding and word meaning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 281–290.

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Focus on the common core

Today I am reviewing two products by Lindsey Swanson-Karol of the Word Nerd Speech Teach Blog related to the core curriculum: the Common Core Based Language Assessment as well as her Robot Phonological Awareness Pack.

Those of  you who follow my blog know that when I select materials, I always try to make sure that the materials are multipurpose, multi-functional, and curriculum embedded.

First up is the Common Core Based Language Assessment.  This 14 page informal language assessment is based on the common core for K-5 grade in the areas of the curriculum relevant to speech-language pathology. Continue reading Focus on the common core

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The Importance of Narrative Assessments in Speech Language Pathology (Revised)

Unconscious Bias: The Power and Risks of Societal Narratives | by Phillip Yan | Left | Right | MediumAs SLPs we routinely administer a variety of testing batteries in order to assess our students’ speech-language abilities. Grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and sentence formulation get frequent and thorough attention. But how about narrative production? Does it get its fair share of attention when the clinicians are looking to determine the extent of the child’s language deficits? I was so curious about what the clinicians across the country were doing that in 2013, I created a survey and posted a link to it in several SLP-related FB groups.  I wanted to find out how many SLPs were performing narrative assessments, in which settings, and with which populations.  From those who were performing these assessments, I wanted to know what type of assessments were they using and how they were recording and documenting their findings.   Since the purpose of this survey was non-research based (I wasn’t planning on submitting a research manuscript with my findings), I only analyzed the first 100 responses (the rest were very similar in nature) which came my way, in order to get the general flavor of current trends among clinicians, when it came to narrative assessments. Here’s a brief overview of my [limited] findings. Continue reading The Importance of Narrative Assessments in Speech Language Pathology (Revised)

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Speech, Language, & Literacy Disorders in School Aged Children with Psychiatric Impairments

Recently I did a presentation for Rutgers University on the subject of  “Speech, Language, & Literacy Disorders in School-Aged Children with Psychiatric Impairments“. The learning objectives for this presentation were as follows:  

  • Explain the comorbidity between language impairments and psychiatric disturbances of school-aged children
  • Describe language and literacy deficits of school-aged children with psychiatric impairments
  • List warning signs of language and literacy deficits in school-aged children that warrant a referral to speech-language pathologists for a potential assessment

Continue reading Speech, Language, & Literacy Disorders in School Aged Children with Psychiatric Impairments

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Dear SLPs, Here’s What You Need to Know About Internationally Adopted Children

In the past several years there has been a sharp decline in international adoptions. Whereas in 2004, Americans adopted a record high of 22,989 children from overseas, in 2015, only 5,647 children  (a record low in 30 years) were adopted from abroad by American citizens.

Primary Data Source: Data Source: U.S. State Department Intercountry Adoption Statistics  

Secondary Data Source: Why Did International Adoption Suddenly End?

Despite a sharp decline in adoptions many SLPs still frequently continue to receive internationally adopted (IA) children for assessment as well as treatment – immediately post adoption as well as a number of years post-institutionalization.

In the age of social media, it may be very easy to pose questions and receive instantaneous responses on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter with respect to assessment and treatment recommendations. However, it is very important to understand that many SLPs, who lack direct clinical experience in international adoptions may chime in with inappropriate recommendations with respect to the assessment or treatment of these children.

Consequently, it is important to identify reputable sources of information when it comes to speech-language assessment of internationally adopted children.

There are a number of researchers in both US and abroad who specialize in speech-language abilities of Internationally Adopted children. This list includes (but is by far not limited to) the following authors:

The works of these researchers can be readily accessed in the ASHA Journals or via ResearchGate.

Meanwhile, here are some basic facts regarding internationally adopted children that all SLPs and parents need to know.

Demographics:

  • —A greater number of older, preschool and school-aged children and fewer number of infants and toddlers are placed for adoption (Selman, 2012).
  • —Significant increase in special needs adoptions from Eastern European countries (e.g., Ukraine, Kazhakstan, etc.) as well as China.  The vast majority of Internationally Adopted children arrive to the United States with significant physical, linguistic, and cognitive disabilities as well as mental health problems. Consequently, it is important for schools to immediately provide the children with a host of services including speech-language therapy, immediately post-arrival.
  • It is also important to know that in the vast majority of cases the child’s linguistic, cognitive, or mental health deficits may not be documented in the adoption records due to poor record keeping, lack of access to adequate healthcare or often to ensure their “adoptability”. As such, parental interviews and anecdotal evidence become the primary source of information regarding these children’s social and academic functioning in their respective birth countries.

The question of bilingualism: 

  • Internationally Adopted children are NOT bilingual children! In fact, the vast majority of internationally adopted children will very rapidly lose their birth language, in a period of 2-3 months post arrival (Gindis, 2005), since they are most often adopted by parents who do not speak the child’s birth language and as such are unable/unwilling to maintain it.
  • IA children do not need to be placed in ESL classes since they are not bilingual children. Not only are IA children not bilingual, they are also not ‘truly’ monolingual since their first language is lost rather rapidly, while their second language has been gained minimally at the time of loss.
  • IA children need to acquire  Cognitive Language Mastery (CLM) which is 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 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.

Image result for assessmentAssessment Parameters: 

  • —IA children’s language abilities should be retested and monitored at regular intervals during the first several years post arrival.  —
  • Glennen (2007) recommends 3 evaluations during the first year post arrival, with annual reevaluations thereafter.  —
  • Hough & Kaczmarek (2011) recommend a reevaluation schedule of 3-4 times a year for a period of two years, post arrival because some IA children continue to present with language-based deficits many years (5+) post-adoption.
  • —If an SLP speaking the child’s first language is available the window of opportunity to assess in the first language is very limited (~2-3 months at most).
  • Similarly, an assessment with an interpreter is recommended immediately post arrival from the birth country for a period of approximately the same time.
  • —If an SLP speaking the child’s first language is not available English-speaking SLP should consider assessing the child in English between 3-6 months post arrival (depending on the child and the situational constraints) in order to determine the speed with which s/he are acquiring English language abilities
    • —Children should be demonstrating rapid language gains in the areas of receptive language, vocabulary as well as articulation (Glennen 2007, 2009)
    • Dynamic assessment is highly recommended
  • It is important to remember that language and literacy deficits are not always very apparent and can manifest during any given period post arrival

To treat or NOT to Treat?

  • “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)
  • —IA children with medical diagnoses, which impact their speech language abilities should be assessed and considered for S-L therapy services as well (Ladage, 2009).

Helpful Links:

  1. Elleseff, T (2013) Changing Trends in International Adoption: Implications for Speech-Language Pathologists. Perspectives on Global Issues in Communication Sciences and Related Disorders, 3: 45-53
  2. Assessing Behaviorally Impaired Students: Why Background History Matters!
  3. Dear School Professionals Please Be Aware of This
  4. What parents need to know about speech-language assessment of older internationally adopted children
  5. Understanding the risks of social pragmatic deficits in post institutionalized internationally adopted (IA) children
  6. Understanding the extent of speech and language delays in older internationally adopted children

References:

  • Gindis, B. (2005). Cognitive, language, and educational issues of children adopted from overseas orphanages. Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 4 (3): 290-315.
  • Glennen, S (2009) Speech and language guidelines for children adopted from abroad at older ages.  Topics in language Disorders 29, 50-64.
  • —Ladage, J. S. (2009). Medical Issues in International Adoption and Their Influence on Language Development. Topics in Language Disorders , 29 (1), 6-17.
  • Selman P. (2012) Global trends in Intercountry Adoption 2000-2010. New York: National Council for Adoption, 2012.
  • Selman P. The global decline of intercountry adoption: What lies ahead?. Social Policy and Society 2012, 11(3), 381-397.

Additional Helpful References:

  • Abrines, N., Barcons, N., Brun, C., Marre, D., Sartini, C., & Fumadó, V. (2012). Comparing ADHD symptom levels in children adopted from Eastern Europe and from other regions: discussing possible factors involved. Children and Youth Services Review, 34 (9) 1903-1908.
  • Balachova, T et al (2010). Changing physicians’ knowledge, skills and attitudes to prevent FASD in Russia: 800. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. 34(6) Sup 2:210A.
  • Barcons-Castel, N, Fornieles-Deu,A, & Costas-Moragas, C (2011). International adoption: assessment of adaptive and maladaptive behavior of adopted minors in Spain. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 14 (1): 123-132.
  • Beverly, B., McGuinness, T., & Blanton, D. (2008). Communication challenges for children adopted from the former Soviet Union. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 39, 1-11.
  • Cohen, N. & Barwick, M. (1996). Comorbidity of language and social-emotional disorders: comparison of psychiatric outpatients and their siblings. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 25(2), 192-200.
  • Croft, C et al, (2007). Early adolescent outcomes of institutionally-deprived and nondeprived adoptees: II. Language as a protective factor and a vulnerable outcome. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48, 31–44.
  • Dalen, M. (2001). School performances among internationally adopted children in Norway. Adoption Quarterly, 5(2), 39-57.
  • Dalen, M. (1995). Learning difficulties among inter-country adopted children. Nordisk pedagogikk, 15 (No. 4), 195-208
  • Davies, J., & Bledsoe, J. (2005). Prenatal alcohol and drug exposures in adoption. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 52, 1369–1393.
  • Desmarais, C., Roeber, B. J., Smith, M. E., & Pollak, S. D. (2012). Sentence comprehension in post-institutionalized school-age children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 45-54
  • Eigsti, I. M., Weitzman, C., Schuh, J. M., de Marchena, A., & Casey, B. J. (2011). Language and cognitive outcomes in internationally adopted children. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 629-646.
  • Geren, J., Snedeker, J., & Ax, L. (2005). Starting over:  a preliminary study of early lexical and syntactic development in internationally-adopted preschoolers. Seminars in Speech & Language, 26:44-54.
  • Gindis (2008) Abrupt native language loss in international adoptees.  Advance for Speech/Language Pathologists and Audiologists.  18(51): 5.
  • Gindis, B. (2005). Cognitive, language, and educational issues of children adopted from overseas orphanages. Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 4 (3): 290-315. Gindis, B. (1999) Language-related issues for international adoptees and adoptive families. In: T. Tepper, L. Hannon, D. Sandstrom, Eds. “International Adoption: Challenges and Opportunities.” PNPIC, Meadow Lands , PA. , pp. 98-108
  • Glennen, S (2009) Speech and language guidelines for children adopted from abroad at older ages.  Topics in language Disorders 29, 50-64.
  • Glennen, S. (2007) Speech and language in children adopted internationally at older ages. Perspectives on Communication Disorders in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations, 14, 17–20.
  • Glennen, S., & Bright, B. J.  (2005).  Five years later: language in school-age internally adopted children.  Seminars in Speech and Language, 26, 86-101.
  • Glennen, S. & Masters, G. (2002). Typical and atypical language development in infants and toddlers adopted from Eastern Europe. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 44, 417-433
  • Gordina, A (2009) Parent Handout: The Dream Referral, Unpublished Manuscript.
  • Hough, S., & Kaczmarek, L. (2011). Language and reading outcomes in young children adopted from Eastern European orphanages. Journal of Early Intervention, 33, 51-57.
  • Hwa-Froelich, D (2012) Childhood maltreatment and communication development. Perspectives on School-Based Issues,  13: 43-53;
  • Jacobs, E., Miller, L. C., & Tirella, G. (2010).  Developmental and behavioral performance of internationally adopted preschoolers: a pilot study.  Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 41, 15–29.
  • Jenista, J., & Chapman, D. (1987). Medical problems of foreign-born adopted children. American Journal of Diseases of Children, 141, 298–302.
  • Johnson, D. (2000). Long-term medical issues in international adoptees. Pediatric Annals, 29, 234–241.
  • Judge, S. (2003). Developmental recovery and deficit in children adopted from Eastern European orphanages. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 34, 49–62.
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On the Disadvantages of Parents Ceasing to Speak the Birth Language with Bilingual Language Impaired Children

ChildrenDespite significant advances in the fields of education and speech pathology, many harmful myths pertaining to multilingualism continue to persist. One particularly infuriating and patently incorrect recommendation to parents is the advice to stop speaking the birth language with their bilingual children with language disorders. Continue reading On the Disadvantages of Parents Ceasing to Speak the Birth Language with Bilingual Language Impaired Children

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Test Review: Test of Written Language-4 (TOWL-4)

Today due to popular demand I am reviewing The Test of Written Language-4 or TOWL-4. TOWL-4 assesses the basic writing readiness skills of students 9:00-17:11 years of age. The tests consist of two forms – A and B, (which contain different subtest content).

According to the manual, the entire test takes approximately  60-90 minutes to administer and examines 7 skill areas. Only the “Story Composition” subtest is officially timed (the student is given 15 minutes to write it and 5 minutes previous to that, to draft it). However, in my experience, each subtest administration, even with students presenting with mild-moderately impaired writing abilities, takes approximately 10 minutes to complete with average results (can you see where I am going with this yet?) 

For detailed information regarding the TOWL-4 development and standardization, validity and reliability, please see HERE. However, please note that the psychometric properties of this test are weak.

Below are my impressions (to date) of using this assessment with students between 11-14 years of age with (known) mild-moderate writing impairments.

Subtests:

1. Vocabulary – The student is asked to write a sentence that incorporates a stimulus word.  The student is not allowed to change the word in any way, such as write ‘running’ instead of run’. If this occurs, an automatic loss of points takes place. The ceiling is reached when the student makes 3 errors in a row.  While some of the subtest vocabulary words are perfectly appropriate for younger children (~9), the majority are too simplistic to assess the written vocabulary of middle and high schoolers. These words may work well to test the knowledge of younger children but they do not take into the account the challenging academic standards set forth for older students. As a result, students 11+ years of age may pass this subtest with flying colors but still present with a fair amount of difficulty using sophisticated vocabulary words in written compositions.

2/3.   Spelling and Punctuation (subtests 2 and 3). These two subtests are administered jointly but scored separately. Here, the student is asked to write sentences dictated by the examiner using appropriate rules for spelling and punctuation and capitalization. Ceiling for each subtest is reached separately. It  occurs when the student makes 3 errors in a row in each of the subtests.   In other words, if a student uses correct punctuation but incorrect spelling, his/her ceiling on the ‘Spelling’ subtest will be reached sooner then on the ‘Punctuation’ subtest and vise versa. Similar to the ‘Vocabulary‘ subtest I feel that the sentences the students are asked to write are far too simplistic to showcase their “true” grade level abilities.

The requirements of these subtests are also not too stringent.  The spelling words are simple and the punctuation requirements are very basic: a question mark here, an exclamation mark there, with a few commas in between. But I was particularly disappointed with the ‘Spelling‘ subtest.  Here’s why. I have a 6th-grade client on my caseload with significant well-documented spelling difficulties. When this subtest was administered to him he scored within the average range (Scaled Score of 8 and Percentile Rank of 25).  However, an administration of Spelling Performance Evaluation for Language and Literacy – SPELL-2, yielded 3 assessment pages of spelling errors, as well as 7 pages of recommendations on how to remediate those errors.  Had he received this assessment as part of an independent evaluation from a different examiner, nothing more would have been done regarding his spelling difficulties since the TOWL-4 revealed an average spelling performance due to its focus on overly simplistic vocabulary.

4. Logical Sentences – The student is asked to edit an illogical sentence so that it makes better sense. Ceiling is reached when the student makes 3 errors in a row. Again I’m not too thrilled with this subtest. Rather than truly attempting to ascertain the student’s grammatical and syntactic knowledge at sentence level a large portion of this subtest deals with easily recognizable semantic incongruities.

5. Sentence Combining – The student integrates the meaning of several short sentences into one grammatically correct written sentence. Ceiling is reached when the student makes 3 errors in a row.  The first few items contain only two sentences which can be combined by adding the conjunction “and”. The remaining items are a bit more difficult due to the a. addition of more sentences and b. increase in the complexity of language needed to efficiently combine them. This is a nice subtest to administer to students who present with difficulty effectively and efficiently expressing their written thoughts on paper. It is particularly useful with students who write down  a lot of extraneous information in their compositions/essays and frequently overuse run-on sentences. 

6. Contextual Conventions – The student is asked to write a story in response to a stimulus picture. S/he earn points for satisfying specific requirements relative to combined orthographic (E.g.: punctuation, spelling) and grammatical conventions (E.g.: sentence construction, noun-verb agreement).  The student’s written composition needs to contain more than 40 words in order for the effective analysis to take place.

The scoring criteria ranges from no credit or a score of 0 ( based on 3 or more mistakes), to partial credit, a score of 1 (based on 1-2 mistakes) to full a credit – a score of 3 (no mistakes). There are 21 scoring parameters which are highly useful for younger elementary-aged students who may exhibit significant difficulties in the domain of writing. However,  older middle school and high-school aged students as well as elementary aged students with moderate writing difficulties may attain average scoring on this subtest but still present with significant difficulties in this area as compared to typically developing grade level peers. As a result, in addition to this assessment, it is recommended that a functional assessment of grade-level writing also be performed in order to accurately identify the student’s writing needs.

7. Story Composition – The student’s story is evaluated relative to the quality of its composition (E.g.: vocabulary, plot, development of characters, etc.). The examiner first provides the student with an example of a good story by reading one written by another student.  Then, the examiner provides the student with an appropriate picture card and tell them that they need to take time to plan their story and make an outline on the (also provided) scratch paper.  The student has 5 minutes to plan before writing the actual story.  After the 5 minutes, elapses they 15 minutes to write the story.  It is important to note that story composition is the very first subtest administered to the student. Once they complete it they are ready to move on to the Vocabulary subtest. There are 11 scoring parameters that are significantly more useful for me to use with younger students as well as significantly impaired students vs. older students or students with mild-moderate writing difficulties. Again if your aim is to get an accurate picture of the older students writing abilities I definitely recommend the usage of clinical writing assessment rubrics based on the student’s grade level in order to have an accurate picture of their abilities.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS:

Strengths:

  • A thorough assessment of basic writing areas for very severely impaired students with writing deficits
  • Flexible subtest administration (can be done on multiple occasions with students who fatigue easily)

Limitations:

  • Untimed testing administration (with the exception of story composition subtests) is NOT functional with students who present with significant processing difficulties. One 12-year-old student actually took ~40 minutes to complete each subtest.
  • Primarily  useful for students with severe deficits in the area of written expression
  • Not appropriate for students with mild-moderate needs (requires suplementation)
  • Lack of remediation suggestions based on subtest deficits
  • Weak psychometric properties

Overall, TOWL-4 can be a useful testing measure for ruling out weaknesses in the student’s basic writing abilities, with respect to simple vocabulary, sentence construction, writing mechanics, punctuation, etc.  If I identify previously unidentified gaps in basic writing skills I can then readily intervene, where needed, if needed. However, it is important to understand that the TOWL-4 is only a starting point for most of our students with complex literacy needs whose writing abilities are above severe level of functioning. Most students with mild-moderate writing difficulties will pass this test with flying colors but still present with significant writing needs. As a result I highly recommend a functional grade-level writing assessment as a supplement to the above-standardized testing.

References: 

Hammill, D. D., & Larson, S. C. (2009). Test of Written Language—Fourth Edition. (TOWL-4). Austin, TX: PRO-ED.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are the personal impressions of the author. This author is not affiliated with PRO-ED in any way and was NOT provided by them with any complimentary products or compensation for the review of this product. 

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What is ND-PAE and how is it Related to FASD?

The DSM-5 was released in May 2013 and with it came a revision of criteria for the diagnosis and classification of many psychiatric disorders.  Among them a new proposed criteria was included relevant to alcohol related deficits in children, which is Neurobehavioral Disorder Associated  With Prenatal Alcohol Exposure (ND-PAE) (DSM-5, pgs 798-801). This proposed criteria was included in order to better serve the complex mental health needs of individuals diagnosed with alcohol related deficits, which the previous diagnosis of 760.71 – Alcohol affecting fetus or newborn via placenta or breast milk was unable to adequately capture.   Continue reading What is ND-PAE and how is it Related to FASD?