Language Disorders in Children Exam 3

Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching

Combines behavioral principles and naturalistic strategies to target early behaviors involving requesting and sharing attention

General procedures involve arranging the environment, following the child’s lead, and building social routines

Routine/Script Training

Purpose is to increase communicative behavior and establish routines

Many SLPs playfully violate the “rules” of a game to elicit a protest

How do we build a first lexicon/words?

Often includes simple, one-syllable (CV/CVC) words that the child already produces

Target functional words that are useful in many situations and represent high interest areas

Toy Talk

Parents should speak to their toddlers using short sentences with nouns as the subjects, as they help expand single-word utterances

Instead of saying “That’s a duck,” encourage parents to say “The duck went swimming!”

Three types of indirect language stimulation

Expansions

Extensions

Buildups and Breakdowns

Expansion

Expand the utterance using adult grammar

From “Tiger jump” to “Yes, the tiger is jumping.”

Extension

Expand the utterance using adult grammar and add information

From “Doggy eat” to “The dog is eating. He’s hungry!”

Buildups and Breakdowns

After building an utterance into a grammatically correct phrase, break it back down into smaller segments to draw awareness to its components

From “Fish in water” to “Yes, the fish is in the water. It’s swimming. It’s in the water. The fish is swimming in the water.”

Goals for preschool language intervention

Form: increased sentence complexity

Content: increased vocabulary size

Use: increase conversational skills across social situations

Impact of language disorders on language use (requests)

Less grammatically complete

Impact of language disorders on language use (comments)

Less frequent, less detailed

Impact of language disorders on language use (presupposition)

Difficulty judging what listeners need to know

Impact of language disorders on language use (turn-taking)

Shorter turns, taking a longer time to respond in conversation, less assertiveness in conversation

Impact of language disorders on language use (responses)

Fewer conversationally obligated responses, less complex responses when asked for clarification, incomplete responses

Purpose of screening for language disorders

To identify children with risk or need for further assessment

Barriers for screening for language difficulty

Maternal education level and teacher perception of executive functioning

Why is formal testing of pragmatics inherently contradictory

Because children will not behave how they would typically in an unfamiliar environment with an unknown communication partner

DLD ToolBox

Purpose is to monitor language difficulties and if needed, intervene

Components are categorized as low concern (red), moderate concern (yellow), and high concern (green)

Factors associated with identification of language intervention by preschool children with DLD

Collaboration between caregivers, educators, childcare providers, and pediatricians

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

federal law that governs the provision of a free, appropriate, public education to preschool children with disabilities

IEP versus IFSP

One is for children’s school-based accommodations and the other is for families at home, but both result in parent collaboration and necessary supports

Risks associated with poor understanding of linguistic diversity

Potential misdiagnosis due to misunderstanding of a client’s communication style

Common myths associated with dual language learning and multilingualism

Dual language learning causes confusion or language delay

A child with a disability will be confused by being exposed to more than one language

Language Disorder

A persistent difficulty learning and using language

Language Difference

The ability to speak another language that is different from the language used for instruction by the majority of people

Characteristics of language disorder

Impact on spoken, written, and/or signed language

May involve form, content, or use of language in communication in any combination

Can be developmental or acquired

May press across the life span or symptoms may change over time

Can be a distinct diagnosis or may occur within the context of other conditions

Characteristics of a language difference

differences in understanding and using language that are influenced by a child’s linguistic and cultural experiences with a first language or a variety of the standard language

Presentation of language disorder

Difficulty across all languages that a child speaks

What should you use when treating a child whose language you do not speak?

Evidence-based resources