Assessing speech-language abilities of children with genetic disorders and developmental disabilities is no easy feat. Although developmental and genetic disorders affecting cognition, communication and functioning are increasingly widespread, speech-language assessment procedures for select populations (e.g., Down Syndrome) remain poorly understood by many speech-language professionals, resulting in ineffective or inappropriate service provision. Continue reading Comprehensive Assessment of Monolingual and Bilingual Children with Down Syndrome
Category: Bilingual
Normal Sequential Bilingual Language Development and Proficiency Attainment
Today I am excited to introduce another product aimed at explaining one of the aspects of typical bilingual language development. This 31 page introductory material describes typical sequential bilingual language development. It is part of several comprehensive bilingual assessment materials found HERE as a part of a “Multicultural Assessment and Treatment Bundle” AND HERE as an individual product entitled “Language Difference vs. Language Disorder: Assessment & Intervention Strategies for SLPs Working with Bilingual Children“.
Learning objectives:
- Discuss types of sequential bilingualism
- List stages of bilingual language acquisition
- Explain the difference between additive and subtractive bilingualism
- Review academic language functions hierarchy
- Describe Unified Competition Model
- Discuss differences in L2 acquisition in younger and older learners
Presentation Content
- Sequential Bilingualism
- Stages of Sequential Language Acquisition
- Bilingualism categorizations
- A Note on Subtractive Bilingualism
- Maintaining L1 while Learning L2
- Language Proficiency: Terminology
- Acquisition Time Frames: L2 vs. IA
- Second Language Acquisition Model
- What is Academic Language?
- Academic Language Functions Hierarchy
- Is there an optimal period for bilingual language acquisition?
- What is Unified Competition Model
- Sensitive period for ‘native-like’ L2 acquisition
- Who learns faster: younger or older children?
- Let’s talk about younger L2 learners
- Let’s talk about older learners (before puberty)
- Let’s talk about older learners (after puberty)
- Affect of Age on L2 Acquisition
- Factors influencing success of older learners
- Conclusion
- Helpful Smart Speech Therapy Resources
- References
Would you like a copy? You can find it HERE in my online store.
Fun and Educational Summer Board Games: Recommendations for SLPs and Parents
According to the New York Times Article which summarized the results of Johns Hopkins University study: A TYPICAL STUDENT WILL LOSE ABOUT ONE MONTH OF LEARNING OVER THE SUMMER TIME.
“More troubling is that it disproportionately affects low-income students: they lose two months of reading skills, while their higher-income peers — whose parents can send them to enriching camps, take them on educational vacations and surround them with books during the summer — make slight gains.” To continue: “the study of students in Baltimore found that about two-thirds of the achievement gap between lower- and higher-income ninth graders could be explained by summer learning loss during the elementary school years.”
BUMMER!
But then again it is summer and kids do want to have fun!
So with the recent heatwaves across the country, how about combining fun with learning on those sweltering summer days when lazing at the pool or going outside may not be the best option.
Let’s take a look at the few common and readily available board games, which can be used to improve various language abilities: including vocabulary knowledge, problem solving, questioning, storytelling as well as other language related 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., basic concepts) to more complicated (e.,. attributes). This game is great for several players of different age groups, since younger children or 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 you help the non readers with the cards. It’s great for encouraging children to become both better at describing and at listening. You may want to allow the children to select the word they want to describe in order to boost their confidence in own abilities. 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.
Games the facilitate asking questions: 
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.
Game that facilitates Story Telling as well as Perspective Taking: Fib or Not (ages 10+) 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.
Games that improve verbal reasoning and problem solving abilities: 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 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.
Now that you know which games to play and why, how about you give it a try.
Have fun playing!
References:
Smink, J (2011) This is Your Brain on Summer. New York Times: The Opinion Pages. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/opinion/28smink.html?_r=1
Multicultural Considerations in Assessment of Play
As speech language pathologist part of my job is to play! Since play assessment is a routine part of speech language evaluations for preschool and early school-aged children, I often find myself on the carpet in my office racing cars, making sure that all the “Little People” get their turn on the toy Ferris Wheel, and “cooking” elaborate meals in complete absence of electrical appliances. In fact, I’ve heard the phrase “I want toy” so many times that I actually began to worry that I might accidentally use it in polite company myself.
The benefits of play are well known and cataloged. Play allows children to use creativity and develop imagination. It facilitates cognition, physical and emotional development, language, and literacy. Play is great! However, not every culture values play as much as the Westerners do.
Cultural values affect how children play. Thus play interactions vary significantly across cultures. For instance, many Asian cultures prize education over play, so in these cultures children may engage in educational play activities vs. pretend play activities. To illustrate, Farver and colleagues have found that Korean preschool children engaged in greater parallel play (vs. pretend play), initiated play less frequently, as well as had less frequent social play episodes in contrast to Anglo-American peers. (Farver, Kim & Lee, 1995; Farver and Shinn 1997)
To continue, cultures focused on individualism stress independence and self-reliance. In such cultures, babies and toddlers are taught to be self sufficient when it comes to sleeping, feeding, dressing, grooming and playing from a very early age. (Schulze, Harwood, and Schoelmerich, 2001) Consequently, in these cultures parents would generally support and encourage child initiated and directed play. However, in many Latin American cultures, parents expect their children to master self-care abilities and function independently at later ages. Play in these cultures may be more parent directed vs. child directed. These children may receive more explicit directives from their caregivers with respect to how to act and speak and be more physically positioned or restrained during play. (Harwood, Schoelmerich, & Schulze, 2000)
In Western culture, early choice making is praised and encouraged. In contrast, traditional collective cultures encourage child obedience and respect over independence (Johnston & Wong, 2002). Choice making may not be as encouraged since it might seem like it’s giving the child too much power. It would not be uncommon for a child to be given a toy to play with which is deemed suitable for him/her, instead of being asked to choose. The children in these cultures may not be encouraged to narrate on their actions during play but expected to play quietly with their toy. Furthermore, if the parents do not consider play as an activity beneficial to their child’s cognitive and emotional development, but treat it as a leisure activity that helps pass the time, they may not ask the child questions regarding what he/she are doing and will not expect the child to narrate on their actions during play.
Consequently, in our assessments, it is very important to keep in mind that children’s play is affected by a number of variables including: cultural values, family relationships, child rearing practices, toy familiarity as well as developmental expectations (Hwa-Froelich, 2004). As such, in order to conduct balanced and objective play assessments, we as clinicians need to find a few moments in our busy schedules to interview the caregivers regarding their views on child rearing practices and play interactions, so we could objectively interpret our assessment findings (e.g., is it delay/disorder or lack of exposure and task unfamiliarity).
References:
- Farver, J. M., Kim, Y. K., & Lee, Y. (1995). Cultural differences in Korean- and Anglo-American preschoolers’ social interaction and play behaviors. Child Development, 66, 1088- 1099.
- Farver, J. M., & Shinn, Y. L. (1997). Social pretend play in Korean- and Anglo- American pre-schoolers. Child Development,68 (3), 544-556.
- Johnston, J.R., & Wong, M.-Y. A. (2002). Cultural differences in beliefs and practices concerning talk to children . Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45 (5), 916-926
- Harwood, R. L., & Schoelmerich, A and Schulze, P. A. (2000) Homogeneity and heterogeneity in cultural belief systems. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 87, 41-57
- Hwa-Froelich, D. A. (2004). Play Assessment for Children from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds. Perspectives on Language, Learning and Education and on Communication Disorders and Sciences in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations, 11(2), 6-10.
- Hwa-Froelich, D. A., & Vigil, D. C. (2004). Three aspects of cultural influence on communication: A literature review. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 25(3),110-118.
- Schulze, P. A., Harwood, R. L., & Schoelmerich, A. (2001). Feeding practices and expectations among middle-class Anglo and Puerto Rican mothers of 12-month-old infants. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32(4), 397–406.