Today it is my pleasure to bring you a giveaway by Speech with Sharon, which is an Idiom of the Week.
This awesome 78 page packet contains
37 color and black and white idiom posters for the following idioms:
•Cry my eyes out
•Feeling blue
•Cry over spilled milk Continue reading Birthday Extravaganza Day Thirty: Idiom of the Week
So you’ve completed a thorough evaluation of your student’s speech and language abilities and are in the process of creating goals and objectives to target in sessions. The problem is that many of the students on our caseloads present with pervasive deficits in many areas of language.
While it’s perfectly acceptable to target just a few goals per session in order to collect good data, both research and clinical experience indicate that addressing goals comprehensively and thematically (the whole system or multiple goals at once from the areas of content, form, and use) via contextual language intervention vs. in isolation (small parts such as prepositions, pronouns, etc.) will bring about the quickest change and more permanent results.
So how can that be done? Well, for significantly language impaired students it’s very important to integrate semantic language components as well as verbal reasoning tasks into sessions no matter what type of language activity you are working on (such as listening comprehension, auditory processing, social inferencing and so on). The important part is to make sure that the complexity of the task is commensurate with the student’s level of abilities.
Let’s say you are working on a fall themed lesson plans which include topics such as apples and pumpkins. As you are working on targeting different language goals, just throw in a few extra components to the session and ask the child to make, produce, explain, list, describe, identify, or interpret:
Ask ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions in order to start teaching the student how to justify, rationalize, evaluate, and make judgments regarding presented information (“Why do you think we plant pumpkins in the spring and not in the fall?”)
Don’t forget the inferencing and predicting questions in order to further develop the client’s verbal reasoning abilities (“What do you think will happen if no one picks up the apples from the ground?)
If possible attempt to integrate components of social language into the session such as ask client to relate to a character in a story, interpret the character’s feelings (“How do you think the girl felt when her sisters made fun of her pumpkin?”), ideas and thoughts, or just read nonverbal social cues such as body language or facial expressions of characters in pictures.
Select materials which are both multipurpose and reusable as well as applicable to a variety of therapy goals. For example, let’s take a simple seasonal word wall such as the (free) Fall Word Wall from TPT by Pocketful of Centers. Print it out in color, cut out the word strips and note how many therapy activities you can target for articulation, language, fluency, literacy and phonological awareness, etc.
Language:
Practice Categorization skills via convergent and divergent naming activities: Name Fall words, Name Halloween/Thanksgiving Words, How many trees whose leaves change color can you name?, how many vegetables and fruits do we harvest in the fall? etc.
Practice naming Associations: what goes with a witch (broom), what goes with a squirrel (acorn), etc
Practice providing Attributes via naming category, function, location, parts, size, shape, color, composition, as well as accessory/necessity. For 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 providing Definitions: Tell me what a skeleton is. Tell me what a scarecrow is.
Practice naming Similarities and Differences among semantically related items: How are pumpkin and apple alike? How are they different?
Practice explaining Multiple Meaning words: What are some meanings of the word bat, witch, clown, etc?
Practice Complex Sentence Formulation: what happens in the fall? Make up a sentence with the words scarecrow and unless, make up a sentence with the words skeleton and however, etc
Phonological Awareness:
Practice Rhyming words (you can do discrimination and production activities): cat/bat/ trick/leaf/ rake/moon
Practice Syllable and Phoneme Segmentation (I am going to say a word (e.g., leaf, corn, scarecrow, etc) and I want you to clap one time for each syllable or sound I say)
Practice Isolation of initial, medial, and final phonemes in words ( e.g., What is the beginning/final sound in apple, hay, pumpkin etc?) What is the middle sound in rake etc?
Practice Initial and Final Syllable and Phoneme Deletion in Words (Say spider! Now say it without the der, what do you have left? Say witch, now say it without the /ch/ what is left; say corn, now say it without the /n/, what is left?)
Articulation/Fluency:
Practice production of select sounds/consonant clusters that you are working on or just production at word or sentence levels with those clients who just need a little bit more work in therapy increasing their intelligibility or sentence fluency.
So next time you are targeting your goals, see how you can integrate some of these suggestions into your data collection and let me know whether or not you’ve felt that it has enhanced your therapy sessions.
Happy Speeching! 
Helpful Resources:
Scenario: Len is a 7-2-year-old, 2nd-grade student who struggles with reading and writing in the classroom. He is very bright and has a high average IQ, yet when he is speaking he frequently can’t get his point across to others due to excessive linguistic reformulations and word-finding difficulties. The problem is that Len passed all the typical educational and language testing with flying colors, receiving average scores across the board on various tests including the Woodcock-Johnson Fourth Edition (WJ-IV) and the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-5 (CELF-5). Stranger still is the fact that he aced Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, Second Edition (CTOPP-2), with flying colors, so he is not even eligible for a “dyslexia” diagnosis. Len is clearly struggling in the classroom with coherently expressing self, telling stories, understanding what he is reading, as well as putting his thoughts on paper. His parents have compiled impressively huge folders containing examples of his struggles. Yet because of his performance on the basic standardized assessment batteries, Len does not qualify for any functional assistance in the school setting, despite being virtually functionally illiterate in second grade.
The truth is that Len is quite a familiar figure to many SLPs, who at one time or another have encountered such a student and asked for guidance regarding the appropriate accommodations and services for him on various SLP-geared social media forums. But what makes Len such an enigma, one may inquire? Surely if the child had tangible deficits, wouldn’t standardized testing at least partially reveal them?
Well, it all depends really, on what type of testing was administered to Len in the first place. A few years ago I wrote a post entitled: “What Research Shows About the Functional Relevance of Standardized Language Tests“. What researchers found is that there is a “lack of a correlation between frequency of test use and test accuracy, measured both in terms of sensitivity/specificity and mean difference scores” (Betz et al, 2012, 141). Furthermore, they also found that the most frequently used tests were the comprehensive assessments including the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals and the Preschool Language Scale as well as one-word vocabulary tests such as the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test”. Most damaging finding was the fact that: “frequently SLPs did not follow up the comprehensive standardized testing with domain-specific assessments (critical thinking, social communication, etc.) but instead used the vocabulary testing as a second measure”.(Betz et al, 2012, 140)
In other words, many SLPs only use the tests at hand rather than the RIGHT tests aimed at identifying the student’s specific deficits. But the problem doesn’t actually stop there. Due to the variation in psychometric properties of various tests, many children with language impairment are overlooked by standardized tests by receiving scores within the average range or not receiving low enough scores to qualify for services.
Thus, “the clinical consequence is that a child who truly has a language impairment has a roughly equal chance of being correctly or incorrectly identified, depending on the test that he or she is given.” Furthermore, “even if a child is diagnosed accurately as language impaired at one point in time, future diagnoses may lead to the false perception that the child has recovered, depending on the test(s) that he or she has been given (Spaulding, Plante & Farinella, 2006, 69).”
There’s of course yet another factor affecting our hypothetical client and that is his relatively young age. This is especially evident with many educational and language testing for children in the 5-7 age group. Because the bar is set so low, concept-wise for these age-groups, many children with moderate language and literacy deficits can pass these tests with flying colors, only to be flagged by them literally two years later and be identified with deficits, far too late in the game. Coupled with the fact that many SLPs do not utilize non-standardized measures to supplement their assessments, Len is in a pretty serious predicament.
But what if there was a do-over? What could we do differently for Len to rectify this situation? For starters, we need to pay careful attention to his deficits profile in order to choose appropriate tests to evaluate his areas of needs. The above can be accomplished via a number of ways. The SLP can interview Len’s teacher and his caregiver/s in order to obtain a summary of his pressing deficits. Depending on the extent of the reported deficits the SLP can also provide them with a referral checklist to mark off the most significant areas of need.
In Len’s case, we already have a pretty good idea regarding what’s going on. We know that he passed basic language and educational testing, so in the words of Dr. Geraldine Wallach, we need to keep “peeling the onion” via the administration of more sensitive tests to tap into Len’s reported areas of deficits which include: word-retrieval, narrative production, as well as reading and writing.
For that purpose, Len is a good candidate for the administration of the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy (TILLS), which was developed to identify language and literacy disorders, has good psychometric properties, and contains subtests for assessment of relevant skills such as reading fluency, reading comprehension, phonological awareness, spelling, as well as writing in school-age children.
Given Len’s reported history of narrative production deficits, Len is also a good candidate for the administration of the Social Language Development Test Elementary (SLDTE). Here’s why. Research indicates that narrative weaknesses significantly correlate with social communication deficits (Norbury, Gemmell & Paul, 2014). As such, it’s not just children with Autism Spectrum Disorders who present with impaired narrative abilities. Many children with developmental language impairment (DLD) (#devlangdis) can present with significant narrative deficits affecting their social and academic functioning, which means that their social communication abilities need to be tested to confirm/rule out presence of these difficulties.
However, standardized tests are not enough, since even the best-standardized tests have significant limitations. As such, several non-standardized assessments in the areas of narrative production, reading, and writing, may be recommended for Len to meaningfully supplement his testing.
Let’s begin with an informal narrative assessment which provides detailed information regarding microstructural and macrostructural aspects of storytelling as well as child’s thought processes and socio-emotional functioning. My nonstandardized narrative assessments are based on the book elicitation recommendations from the SALT website. For 2nd graders, I use the book by Helen Lester entitled Pookins Gets Her Way. I first read the story to the child, then cover up the words and ask the child to retell the story based on pictures. I read the story first because: “the model narrative presents the events, plot structure, and words that the narrator is to retell, which allows more reliable scoring than a generated story that can go in many directions” (Allen et al, 2012, p. 207).
As the child is retelling his story I digitally record him using the Voice Memos application on my iPhone, for a later transcription and thorough analysis. During storytelling, I only use the prompts: ‘What else can you tell me?’ and ‘Can you tell me more?’ to elicit additional information. I try not to prompt the child excessively since I am interested in cataloging all of his narrative-based deficits. After I transcribe the sample, I analyze it and make sure that I include the transcription and a detailed write-up in the body of my report, so parents and professionals can see and understand the nature of the child’s errors/weaknesses.
Now we are ready to move on to a brief nonstandardized reading assessment. For this purpose, I often use the books from the Continental Press series entitled: Reading for Comprehension, which contains books for grades 1-8. After I confirm with either the parent or the child’s teacher that the selected passage is reflective of the complexity of work presented in the classroom for his grade level, I ask the child to read the text. As the child is reading, I calculate the correct number of words he reads per minute as well as what type of errors the child is exhibiting during reading. Then I ask the child to state the main idea of the text, summarize its key points as well as define select text embedded vocabulary words and answer a few, verbally presented reading comprehension questions. After that, I provide the child with accompanying 5 multiple choice question worksheet and ask the child to complete it. I analyze my results in order to determine whether I have accurately captured the child’s reading profile.
Finally, if any additional information is needed, I administer a nonstandardized writing assessment, which I base on the Common Core State Standards for 2nd grade. For this task, I provide a student with a writing prompt common for second grade and give him a period of 15-20 minutes to generate a writing sample. I then analyze the writing sample with respect to contextual conventions (punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and syntax) as well as story composition (overall coherence and cohesion of the written sample).
The above relatively short assessment battery (2 standardized tests and 3 informal assessment tasks) which takes approximately 2-2.5 hours to administer, allows me to create a comprehensive profile of the child’s language and literacy strengths and needs. It also allows me to generate targeted goals in order to begin effective and meaningful remediation of the child’s deficits.
Children like Len will, unfortunately, remain unidentified unless they are administered more sensitive tasks to better understand their subtle pattern of deficits. Consequently, to ensure that they do not fall through the cracks of our educational system due to misguided overreliance on a limited number of standardized assessments, it is very important that professionals select the right assessments, rather than the assessments at hand, in order to accurately determine the child’s areas of needs.
References:
In mid-2014, I purchased the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals®, Fifth Edition Metalinguistics (CELF®-5 Metalinguistics), which is a revision of the Test of Language Competence–Expanded.
Basic overview
Release date: 2014
Age Range: 9-21
Author: Elizabeth Wiig and Wayne Secord
Publisher: Pearson
Description: According to the manual CELF–5M was created to “identify students 9-21 years old who have not acquired the expected levels of communicative competence and metalinguistic ability for their age” (pg. 1). In other words the test targets higher level language skills beyond the basic vocabulary and grammar knowledge and use. The authors recommend using this test with students with “subtle language disorders” or “those on the autism spectrum”.
The test contains 5 subtests:
The Metalinguistics Profile subtest of the CELF-5:M is a questionnaire (filled out by caregiver or teacher) which targets three areas: Words, Concepts, and Multiple Meanings; Inferences and Predictions; as well as Conversational Knowledge and Use. Its aim is to obtain information about a student’s metalinguistic skills in everyday educational and social contexts to complement the evidence of metalinguistic strengths and weaknesses identified by the other subtests that comprise the CELF-5:M test battery.
Questions address such topics as the child’s comprehension of idioms and abstract language, their predicting and inferencing abilities, their ability to deal with unpleasant situations, participate in group discussions, as well as understand jokes and sarcasm, just to name a few. A maximum of four points can be obtained on each of it 30 questions. The following is the rating criteria: a score of one is obtained when a child ‘never’ does something in a particular category (e.g., doesn’t get the punchline of jokes). A score of two is given when a child is capable of understanding or using something ‘some of the time’. A score of three is given when a child is able to understand or perform something ‘often’. Finally, a score of four is given when a child is capable of comprehending something ‘always’ or ‘almost always’.
A word of caution, when giving this profile to either teachers or parents to fill out, the SLP must ensure that no overinflation or underestimation of scores takes place. Frequently, some parents may not have a clear understanding of the extent of their child’s level of deficits. Similarly, some teachers, especially those who may not know the child very well, or those who have worked with a child for a very short period of time, may overinflate the scores when filling out the questionnaire. However, the opposite may also occur. A small group of parents may underestimate their children’s abilities, and provide poor scores as a result also not providing an objective picture of the child’s level of deficits. In such situations, the best option may be for the SLP to fill out the questionnaire together with the parent or teacher in order to provide explanations of questions in a different categories.
The Making Inferences subtest of the CELF-5:M evaluates the student’s ability to identify and formulate logical inferences on the basis of existing causal relationships presented in short narrative texts. The student is visually and auditorily presented with a particular situation by the examiner. S/he is then asked to identify the best two out of four written answers for the ending and come up with her own additional reason other than the ones listed in the stimulus book.
On the multiple choice portion of the subtest errors can result due to provision of contradictory, unrelated and irrelevant responses. On the open ended questions portion of the subtest errors can result due to vague, confusing, incomplete, unlikely or illogical responses as well as due to contradictory and off topic answers.
I must say that this is my least favorite subtest. Here’s why. In real life students are not provided with multiple choices when asked to make predictions or inferences. That is why I do not believe that performance on this subtest is a true representation of the child’s ability in this area.
The Conversational Skills subtest of the CELF-5:M evaluates the student’s ability to initiate a conversation or respond in a way that is relevant and pragmatically appropriate to the context and audience while incorporating given words in semantically and syntactically correct sentences. S/he are presented with a picture scene that creates a conversational context and two or three words which are also printed above the pictured scene. S/he are then asked to formulate a conversationally and pragmatically appropriate sentence for the given context using all of the target words in the form (tense, number, etc.) provided.
Errors on this subtest can result due to pragmatic, semantic or syntactic errors. With respect to pragmatics errors can result due to illogical, nonsensical, vague or incomplete sentences as well as due to sentence formulation which does not take into account presented scenes. With respect to semantics errors can result due to missing or misused target words as well as due to vague, incorrect or misused verbiage. With respect to syntax errors can result due to use of sentence fragments, morphological misuse of target words (changing word forms) as well as syntact deviations on non-target words.
The Multiple Meanings subtest of the CELF-5:M evaluates the student’s ability to recognize and interpret different meanings of selected lexical (word level) and structural (sentence level) ambiguities. S/he are presented a sentence (orally and in text) that contained an ambiguity at either the word or sentence level. S/he are then asked to describe two meanings for each presented sentence.
Errors can result due to difficulty interpreting lexical and structural ambiguities as well as due to an inability to provide more than one interpretation to presented multiple meaning words.
The Figurative Language subtest of the CELF-5:M evaluates the student’s ability to interpret figurative expressions (idioms) within a given context and match each expression with another figurative expression of similar meaning given verbal and written support.
Errors on this subtest can result due to difficulty explaining the meanings of idiomatic expressions, as well as due to difficulty selecting the appropriate meaning from visually provided multiple choice answers containing related idiomatic expressions.
Based on testing the following long-term goal can be generated:
LTG: Student will improve his/her metalinguistic abilities (thinking about language) for academic and social purposes
It can also yield the following short-term goals
A word of caution regarding testing eligibility:
What I am concerned about:
Consequently the CELF-5: M administration is not for everyone. As mentioned before I would only administer portions of this test to higher functioning (but not too high functioning) students undergoing language assessment for the first time or to higher functioning students receiving a re-evaluation, who have previously passed the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-5 with ease. This test would not be appropriate for Severely Challenged and Challenged Social Communicators (see Winner, 2015)
I would also not administer this test to the following populations:
I would not administer the CELF-5:M to the latter two groups of students due to significantly increased potential for linguistic and cultural bias stemming from lack of previous knowledge and exposure to popular culture as well as idiomatic expressions.
I would also not administer this test to Nuance Challenged Social Communicators (Winner, 2015). Specifically to Socially Anxious and Weak Interactive Social Communicators (Winner, 2015). These are the students with average or above average verbal language abilities most of whom did not have language delays when they were young. They have a ‘well-developed social radar’ and they’re highly aware of other people feelings and thoughts. However they have difficulties navigating subtle social cues of others. As a result this particular group of students tends to score quite on metalinguistic and social pragmatic testing of reduced complexity yet still present with pervasive social pragmatic language deficits.
Consequently, Clinical Assessment of Pragmatics (CAPs) administration would better suit their needs.
What I do like about this test:
This test allows me to identify more subtle language-based difficulties in verbal children with average to high average intelligence (or Emerging Social Communicators as per Winner, 2015) who present with metalinguistic and social pragmatic language weaknesses in the following areas:
Overall, this is an nice test to have in your assessment toolkit. Consequently,if SLPs exercise caution in test candidate selection they can obtain very useful information for metalinguistic and social pragmatic language treatment goal purposes.
NEW: Need a CELF-5M Template Report? Find it HERE
3-1-19 Update: Since this review was written in October 2014, I have reviewed other tests, including the Clinical Assessment of Pragmatics (CAPs), which can be substituted and effectively used to delve into metalinguistic abilities of students with social communication difficulties. As such, while I still use the Multiple Meanings and the Figurative Language subtests of the CELF-5M rather frequently due to its suitability for a select number of students that I assess, given its described limitations, I would approach its purchase with caution, if it were the only test to be owned by the therapist for the purpose of assessment (it’s perfectly suitable as part of a battery but not as a standalone and only option).
Helpful Resources Related to Social Pragmatic Language Overview, Assessment and Remediation:
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are the personal opinion of the author. The author is not affiliated with Pearson in any way and was not provided by them with any complimentary products or compensation for the review of this product.
Today’s guest post on Williams Syndrome comes from Pamela Mandell, M.S. CCC-SLP with a contribution from Priya Deonarain, MA, OTR/L, CKTP.
Overview
Williams syndrome (WS), also known as Williams-Beuren Syndrome, is a rare genetic disorder caused by the deletion of the long arm of chromosome 7 or, more specifically a microdeletion at 7q11.23, which involves the elastin gene. WS occurs in approximately 1 in 10,000 births worldwide. It is characterized by cardiovascular disease, dysmorphic craniofacial features, a characteristic cognitive and personality profile, deficient visuospatial abilities, hyperacusis, growth retardation, developmental delays, feeding difficulties, and learning disabilities. However, many people with WS exhibit strong expressive language skills and an affinity for music. Mild to severe anxieties as well as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are also associated with WS. The degree of severity or involvement of these characteristics is variable and no two individuals with WS are alike. WS affects both males and females equally. Sadler, et al. (2001), determined the severity of both supravalvular aortic stenosis (SVAS) and total cardiovascular disease was significantly higher in males than females. There is no cure for WS. Patients must be continually monitored and treated for symptoms throughout their lives. Continue reading Spotlight on Syndromes: An SLPs and OTs Perspective on Williams Syndrome
Functional Strategies for Improving the Language Abilities of Your Adopted School-Age Child.While most internationally adopted children catch up to their peers in language development somewhat quickly, not all internationally adopted children demonstrate equal progress by the time they reach school age. Below are some suggestions on how parents can facilitate their school age child’s language skills and improve their language abilities via fun interactive games that the whole family can enjoy and benefit from.
There are several language functions important for academic success. Typically this hierarchy develops from the most basic to the most complex, with the earliest stages beginning long before the child reaches school age. These functions include the ability to: seek information, inform, compare, order, classify, analyze, infer, justify/persuade, solve problems, synthesize, and evaluate. For some children those abilities come naturally while for others – a creative push in the right direction might just do the trick. Luckily, there are plenty of children’s games on the market that address the above skills in a fun and functional way, oftentimes without the child even realizing that they are doing work.
One of the earliest and important areas of language development is vocabulary knowledge. Good vocabulary skills are essential for communication of thoughts and ideas, interaction with peers, as well as meeting the demands of the classroom. As academic demands increase the importance of good vocabulary comes prominently into play. Vocabulary hierarchy ranges from a simple ability of labeling (providing a name for people, actions and objects) to the advanced descriptions (using attributes, functions, and learned concepts to depict an object/item in a cohesive manner). As children’s vocabulary increases from basic labeling to using sophisticated descriptions it goes through several other important stages outlined below:
• Concept Knowledge – the ability to comprehend and identify qualitative (e.g., same–different, big– little, hot-cold), quantitative (e.g., few-many, more-less), temporal (e.g., before-after, next, first, last), or spatial (e.g., in-on, under-over) concepts
• Associations – knowledge of how words are semantically related/linked (e.g., knowing why a spoon and a knife go together)
• Categorization/Classification – the ability to identify items within a category (divergent naming) and provide labels for groups/classes of objects (convergent naming)
The following are just a few selected examples of available games (a more complete list will be provided at the end of this article) that should help facilitate the development of vocabulary language skills:
A to Z Jr- a game of early categorizations is recommended for players 5 – 10 years of age, but can be used with older children depending on their knowledge base. The object of the game is to cover all letters on your letter board by calling out words in specific categories before the timer runs out. This game can be used to increase word finding abilities in children with weak language skills as the categories range from simple (e.g., colors) to more complicated (e.,. animals with stripes). This game is great for several players of different age groups (e.g., older siblings), since children with weaker knowledge and language skills can answer simpler questions and learn the answers to the harder questions as other players get their turn.
Tribond Jr – is another great game which purpose is to determine how 3 seemingly random items are related to one another. Good for older children 7-12 years of age it’s also great for problem solving and reasoning as some of the answers are not so straight forward (e.g., what do the clock, orange and circle have in common? Psst…they are all round)
Password Jr-is a great game to develop the skills of description. In the game you guess passwords based on the one word clues. This game is designed to play with children ages 7 years and older as long as the parents help the non readers with the cards. It’s great for encouraging children to become both better at describing and at listening. Parents are encouraged to allow their kids to select the word they want to describe in order to boost their confidence in own abilities. Parents are also encouraged to provide visual cheat sheets (listing ways we can describe something such as: what does it do, where does it go, how can we use it etc) to the child as they will be much more likely to provide more complete descriptions of the target words given visual cues.
Blurt – a game for children 10 and up is a game that works on a simple premise. Blurt out as many answers as you can in order to guess what the word is. Blurt provides ready-made definitions that you read off to players so they could start guessing what the word is. Players and teams use squares on the board strategically to advance by competing in various definition challenges that increase language opportunities.
However, vocabulary knowledge alone does not determine academic success. There are other equally valuable language skills which are important as well. One of them is asking and answering questions. Being able to ask and answer questions is an integral part of academic success.
Asking questions is one of the main ways that children obtain knowledge about the world beyond their immediate experience. Children who are unable to ask questions are at a disadvantage when it comes to following directions or understanding difficult concepts since they are unable to request repetition and clarification from speakers. Moreover, the inability to answer questions effectively is an indication that the child will not be understood well by others. Being able to answer concrete and abstract questions is another necessary requirement for success in school. Games such as Guess Who (age 6+), Guess Where (age 6+), and Mystery Garden (age 4+) are great for encouraging students to ask relevant questions in order to be the first to win the game. They are also terrific for encouraging reasoning skills. Questions have to be thought through carefully in order to be the first one to win the game.
Another important ability in the language learning hierarchy is story telling. Being able to tell good stories is a difficult task for many children, even those without language impairment. Consequently, one way of learning to become a good story teller is through the usage of visual cues such as picture cards, or games. When children are very young speech therapists often work on improving their story telling abilities using props such as a variety of toys or puppets. As they get older they transition to picture cards or wordless story books with the final step being spontaneously produced stories with no visual support. One of such games is Fib or Not (ages 10+). The game encourages the players to fool other players by either telling an outlandish true story or a truly believable made up story. For the players who are listening to the story, the objective is to correctly guess if the story teller is fibbing or being truthful. Players advance by fooling the other players or by guessing correctly.
As children grow older, they are required to do more and more tasks that focus on their verbal reasoning and problem solving abilities. If your child’s problem solving skills are on the weaker side consider using events from storybooks that illustrate problems. Talk aloud about the problem and offer a list of choices if your child is having difficulties figuring out the answers. Have your child talk through the process of how they arrived to their conclusions and offer suggestions and guidance along the way. The two popular games that work on improving verbal reasoning and problem solving abilities are: 30 Second Mysteries (ages 8-12) and 20 Questions for Kids (ages 7+).
In 30 Second Mysteries kids need to use critical thinking and deductive reasoning in order to solve mysteriously sounding cases of everyday events. Each clue read aloud reveals more about the mystery and the trick is to solve it given the fewest number of clues in order to gain the most points. In 20 Questions for Kids, a classic guessing game of people, places, and things, children need to generate original questions in order to obtain information. Here again, each clue read aloud reveals more about the secret identity and the trick is to solve it given the fewest number of clues.
A good way of implementing the above games in action is during family fun night. Select a game that focuses on one or more elements that you feel your child needs to work on and then involve your entire family in a game playing activity so the child does not feel that they are being isolated for “work”. For children who are younger or with weaker vocabularies, modify the rules to help to simplify the demands of the game, or play in a team so that the child doesn’t feel overwhelmed. Feel free to provide your own cues and prompts in order to achieve maximum success with all gaming activities.
Now that we have gone over the game description and selection process in some detail, please keep in mind that you can always learn more about children’s games by simply going to a popular internet websites such as Amazon and reading product descriptions in order to figure out whether specific game is right fit for your child.
As always, parents are advised to consult with related professionals (speech and language therapists, psychologists, etc) if they have any serious concerns regarding their child’s communication skills. Early detection and treatment are critical to the process of successful speech and language development not just in early childhood but also during school age, adolescence, and even early adulthood.
Best of luck and have fun playing!
List of Selected Games:
• 20 Questions for Kids
• 30 Second Mysteries
• A to Z Jr.
• Blurt
• Fib or Not
• Guess Where?
• Guess Who?
• Last Word
• Loaded Questions
• Mystery Garden
• Outburst
• Password Junior
• Tribond Junior
This 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.
This post is based on 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
Changing Trends in International Adoption:
In recent years the changing trends in international adoption revealed a shift in international adoption demographics which includes more preschool and school-aged children being sent for adoption vs. infants and toddlers (Selman, 2012a; 2010) as well as a significant increase in special needs adoptions from Eastern European countries as well as from China (Selman, 2010; 2012a). Continue reading What parents need to know about speech-language assessment of older internationally adopted children
Today I am reviewing a fairly recently released (2014) book from the Learning By Design, Inc. team entitled SPELL-Links Strategies by Numbers. This 57 page instructional guide was created to support the implementation of the SPELL-Links to Reading and Writing Word Study Curriculum as well as to help students “use the SPELL-Links strategies anytime in any setting.’ (p. iii) Its purpose is to enable students to strategize their way to writing and reading rather than overrelying on memorization techniques.
SPELL-Links Strategies by Numbers contains in-depth explanations of SPELL-Links’ 14 strategies for spelling and reading, detailed instructions on how to teach the strategies during writing and reading activities, as well as helpful ideas for supporting students as they further acquire literacy skills. It can be used by a wide array of professionals including classroom teachers, speech-language pathologists, reading improvement teachers, learning disabilities teachers, aides, tutors, as well as parents for teaching word study lessons or as carryover and practice during reading and writing tasks.
The author includes a list of key terms used in the book as well as a guide with instructional icons 
The goal of the 14 strategies listed in the book is to build vocabulary, improve spelling, word decoding, reading fluency, and reading comprehension as well as improve students’ writing skills. While each strategy is presented in isolation under its own section, the end result is for students to fully integrate and apply multiple strategies when reading or writing.
Here’s the list of the 14 strategies in order of appearance as applied to spelling and reading:
Each strategy includes highly detailed implementation instructions with students including pictorial support as well as both instructor and student guidance for practice at various levels during writing and reading tasks. At the end of the book all the strategies are succinctly summarized in handy table, which is also provided to the user separately as a double sided one page insert printed on reinforced paper to be used as a guide when the book is not handy.
There are a number of things I like about the book. Firstly, of course it is based on the latest research in reading, writing, and spelling. Secondly, clinicians can use it the absence of SPELL-Links to Reading and Writing Word Study Curriculum since the author’s purpose was to have the students “use the SPELL-Links strategies anytime in any setting.’ (p. iii). Thirdly, I love the fact that the book is based on the connectionist research model, which views spelling and reading as a “dynamic interplay of phonological, orthographic, and semantic knowledge.” (iii). Consequently, the listed strategies focus on simultaneously developing and strengthening phonological, orthographic, semantic and morphological knowledge during reading and writing tasks.
You can find this book for purchase on the Learning By Design, Inc. Store HERE. Finally, due to the generosity of Jan Wasowicz PhD the book’s author, you can enter my Rafflecopter giveaway below for a chance to win your own copy!
In case you haven’t read my previous post on this topic, my birthday is in October so I decided that it will be fun to give away one product every day of the month (well almost). My SLP colleague bloggers and TPT sellers thought the same, so they donated many exciting materials and products for me to give away all throughout the month of October.
Every 7 days I will be posting a schedule of giveaway products as a jpeg with embedded pdf file containing links to the donor’s blog and product being given away so you’ll know in advance which giveaway you’d like to enter.
Below is a WEEK TWO lineup. Take a look at the posted schedule and decide whether you want to enter a few giveaways or all of them, it’s really up to you! Each giveaway will last only one day so you better keep up because if you blink you’ll miss it!
