Emerging language
What is the main approach for treatment for emerging language?
What principles does it use/what is an overview of this approach?
Who are ideal candidates?
2. Child-led treatment that focuses on functional language in context. It incorporates prompting and reinforcement for communication into natural play contexts. Main features: Environmental arrangement, Milieu teaching, Response interaction.
Ideal candidates are children who are verbally imitative, have at least 10 words, early stage language learner (MLU 1-3.5, B-L 1-5)
Populations include children with language/cognitive delays, DS, DLD, ASD, high-risk children
What defines developing language stage?
preschool aged or older with:
-expressive vocab greater than 50 words
-begin combining words into sentences
-have not acquired all basic sentences structures of language yet
-Stages 2-5+ on Brown's Morphemes
define:
-Emergent literacy
-Print knowledge
-Print referencing
-Emergent literacy - stage at which children begin to learn about reading and writing through early experiences with print and books
-Print knowledge -alphabet knowledge, print concept knowledge
-Print referencing - method of targeting print knowledge for children in emergent literacy stage
How would you assess vocabulary knowledge in school aged children?
Overall, look at abilities related to word form, meaning, and use; and look to what level they understand the word.
Static assessment
-Norm-referenced standardized assessments (CELF-5, CASL, PPVT/EVT, OWLS)
-Depth of word knowledge
Dynamic assessment
-DELV to look at learning abilities
-Observe in classroom, ideally during a vocab lesson
-Ask for teacher input
How would you monitor progress for (E)MT for a child in the emerging language stage?
-Assess receptive/expressive language derived from a communication inventory (M-B CDI)
-Language sample to look at -expressive language, frequency/rate of spontaneous utterances
What are the basic goals of (E)MT?
1. Increase frequency of communication
2. Increase diversity of utterances
3. Increase complexity of utterances
4. Promoting independent and generalized use of communication across contexts
What areas do you assess for developing language, and how?
Semantics/vocab(receptive only)
-Norm-referenced standardized assessments (PPVT, RVT)
-criterion-referenced assessment
-language sample
Morphology and Syntax (expressive and receptive)
-Norm-referenced standardized assessments
-expressive morphology and syntax
- elicited probes
-language sampling (discourse)
-receptive syntax and vocab
-criterion reference decontextualized probes for forms causing trouble
-criterion-referenced contextualized probes
PragmaticsPrint referencing - who can you use it with? Why should you do it? How do you do it?
Who - preschoolers, low income, LI/DD
Why - first part of reading process, indicator of later ability, children do not naturally attend to print
How - caregiver training, can be done in a 15 minute video. Interactive readings should be 10-40 min long, with 5-20 explicit teaching episodes.
What vocab should you target for school-aged children?
-new words related to familiar items
-classroom vocab
-size of morphological family (words with more suffixes/prefixes/etc.)
-consider what tier of vocab they need
tier 1 - high frequency words
tier 2 - literature and academic language
tier 3 - low frequency, domain specific language
How to increase the saliency of a target word or sound?
-acoustic characteristics & rate (longer, louder, pitch)
-Position of target (end or front)
-Contrast target form with related forms using acoustic or positional saliency
Explain how to do environmental arrangement for (E)MT
-select preferred toys that provide reason to talk
-arrange materials in a way to elicit conversation
-place desired items out of reach or in clear plastic container
-surprise child with new or unanticipated items
Along with assessment results, what should you consider when selecting language goals of children in the developing language stage?
-Absent and/or emerging targets - the zone of proximal development
-phonetic composition of targets
-developmental appropriateness of targets
-functionality of target
-caregiver preferences
-generalizability
-amount - ideally addressing 5-10 lexical items, 2-3 semantic-syntactic relations at a time (not too much, not too little)
What are the four areas you can target with print referencing? Give one or two examples of each.
1. Words - word identification, letters vs. words, short vs. long words, concept of word in print
2.Letters - upper and lower case, names
3. Book and print organization - page order, author, top and bottom of page, structural features, genre
4. Print meaning - print function metalinguistic concepts of print
How would you target vocabulary in school aged children?
(4 direct instruction methods)
1. Robust vocabulary - rich language environment
2. Interactive reading - (pre-read, read, post-read framework from Voleme & Storkel)
3. Metalinguistic approach - teaching vocabulary needed to talk and think about words
4. Morphological awareness - "word sorts" "Word building"
Bonus - visual organizers, teach context clues, use child friendly definitions
What are measures of microstructure and macrostructure?
For analysis, what specific areas would you look at in macrostructure?
Microstructure - lexical and sentence level grammatical measures
macrostructure - measures of content, organization, overall quality
Macrostructure Analysis
1. Story components (# of components)
2. Story episodes (complexity & structure)
3. Cohesion
4. Story "sparkle" (story art, "story quality analysis")
Explain how to do response interaction for (E)MT
-responding to child's communication (contingent semantic interactions)
-Modeling language
-Imitate or mirror child
-Expansions
-Turn taking - using predictable social routines (peak-a-boo)
How would you approach treatment for a child in the developing language stage for syntax + morphology (grammar?)
And/or, what are four types of clinician-created opportunities for grammar treatment in this stage?
-Explicit-implicit combo approach is best. Play based/naturalistic.
-4 types of clinician created opportunities
1. Focused Stimulation/Modeling
2. Recasting
3. Imitation
4. Discrete trials
What are components that contribute meaning to a word, and why are they important?
E.g. morphology
-Morphology
-Orthography (how are sounds represented in word)
-phonology
-syntax
-pragmatics
-literal vs. figurative
The more we teach all the pieces of a word, the easier it is to learn and use
What are some arguments against cognitive referencing for speech and language services? (e.g. using IQ to determine eligibility for treatment)
-IQ does not predict learning potential
-SLP intervention is all about communication
-Language intervention can improve IQ skills
How would you target narrative skills for school aged children?
Narrative Based Language Intervention (NBLI)
-Targets grammar and narrative at the macrostructure (increase use of story elements) and microstructure level (increase use and accuracy of grammatical forms), cohesion, and story art
-Tools - literature, customized narratives, pictography
-Method - modeling, imitation, story generation
-Elicitive models (parent/clinician models target and prompts child to imitate)
-Mands (verbal prompt of question or mand)
-Time delays
-Incidental teaching (combines all approaches)
Was is focused stimulation, who is it good for, how would you implement it?
Intervention where child is exposed to multiple examples of target and not asked to imitate
Best for toddlers ->early elementary, late talkers, language delay, ASD, DLD, ID
Can be used to target pragmatics, semantics, phonology, morphology, and syntax
To implement -
-Be clear about what you are focusing on, create many opportunities to provide focused models, deliberately manipulate target to increase saliency. Clinician can preselect targets and manipulate input while still following child's lead in natural context.
Why is targeting vocabulary important for school-aged children?
-strong correlation with vocab/word learning ability and academic success
-Vocab has a reciprocal relationship with comprehension
-Explicit teaching of words improves comprehension
-increased vocab improves metalinguistic skills which enable better word learning
-may improve phonological awareness
-kids with DLD need multiple exposures
What are two types of discourse?
Narratives - describing events, thoughts, and feelings
Expository discourse - more of an exchange
-explains or describes topic
-timeless or repeated
-deliver new information and explain new topics
How to do expository discourse intervention?
Discussion and elaboration
-relate known to unknown
-modify complexity and unpack content
-identify text structure
-graphic organizer
-RISE+ (Repeated opportunities, intensity, systematic learning, explicit skill focus, +student choice of activities)