Search Results for: bilingualism autism

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It’s all about RtI!

Today I am excited to review one of the latest products from Busy Bee Speech “Common Core Standards-Based RtI Packet for Language“.

So what is RtI or Response to Intervention?

Developed as an alternative to the ability–achievement “discrepancy model,” which requires children to show a discrepancy between their IQ and standardized tests/grades, RtI is a method of academic intervention aimed to provide early, systematic assistance to children who are having difficulty learning in order to prevent academic failure via the provision of early school based intervention, frequent progress measurement, and increasingly intensive research-based instructional interventions for children who continue to have difficulty learning.

In contrast to a number of schools in my state (New Jersey), RTI or Response to Intervention is currently not utilized in my unique setting (outpatient specialized school in a psychiatric hospital). Continue reading It’s all about RtI!

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SLP Trivia Night: Round Two

1. As related to internationally adopted (IA) children, what does the acronym CLM stand for and what does it mean?

2. “The pattern of language acquisition in internationally adopted children is often referred to as a second first language acquisition” (Scott et al., 2011). Why?

3. Why CAN’T we treat Internationally Adopted children as bilingual speakers?

4. IA children may present with “normal” language abilities but still display significant difficulties in this area of functioning ___________.

5.  Finish the following sentence: “Any child with a known history of speech and language delays in the sending country should _____________________”.

Place your responses under this blog post and number each response for clarity.

The first person to get all answers correct will have their choice of product from my online store.

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Comprehensive Assessment of Monolingual and Bilingual Children with Down Syndrome

Image result for down syndromeAssessing 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

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FREE Resources for Working with Russian Speaking Clients: Part III Introduction to “Dyslexia”

Image result for дислексияGiven the rising interest in recent years in the role of SLPs in the treatment of reading disorders, today I wanted to share with parents and professionals several reputable  FREE resources on the subject of “dyslexia” in Russian-speaking children.

Now if you already knew that there was a dearth of resources on the topic of treating Russian speaking children with language disorders then it will not come as a complete shock to you that very few legitimate sources exist on this subject.

Related imageFirst up is the Report on the Russian Language for the World Dyslexia Forum 2010 by Dr. Grigorenko, the coauthor of the Dyslexia Debate. This 25-page report contains important information including Reading/Writing Acquisition of Russian in the Context of Typical and Atypical Development as well as on the state of Individuals with Dyslexia in Russia.

Related imageNext up is this delightful presentation entitled: “If John were Ivan: Would he fail in reading? Dyslexia & dysgraphia in Russian“. It is a veritable treasure trove of useful information on the topics of:

  • The Russian language
  • Literacy in Russia (Russian Federation)
  • Dyslexia in Russia
    • Definition
    • Identification
    • Policy
  • Examples of good practice
    • Teaching reading/language arts
      • In regular schools
      • In specialized settings
    • Encouraging children to learn

Image result for orthographyNow let us move on to the “The Role of Phonology, Morphology, and Orthography in English and Russian Spelling” which discusses that “phonology and morphology contribute more for spelling of English words while orthography and morphology contribute more to the spelling of Russian words“. It also provides clinicians with access to the stimuli from the orthographic awareness and spelling tests in both English and Russian, listed in its appendices.

Finally, for parents and Russian speaking professionals, there’s an excellent article entitled, “Дислексия” in which Dr. Grigorenko comprehensively discusses the state of the field in Russian including information on its causes, rehabilitation, etc.

Related Helpful Resources:

  1. Анализ Нарративов У Детей С Недоразвитием Речи (Narrative Discourse Analysis in Children With Speech Underdevelopment)
  2. Narrative production weakness in Russian dyslexics: Linguistic or procedural limitations?

 

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Normal Simultaneous Bilingual Language Development and Milestones Acquisition

5428Today I am excited to introduce another product aimed at explaining one of the aspects of typical bilingual language development. This 26 page introductory material describes simultaneous (from infancy) 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:
  • —Explain Dual Language System Hypothesis
  • —List important milestones of bilingual language development
  • —Discuss the difference between code-mixing and code-switching
  • —Review advantages of bilingual language development

Presentation Content

  • Simultaneous dual language acquisition in infancy
  • Dual Language System Hypothesis
  • Similarities between monolingual and bilingual language acquisition
  • Simultaneous Bilingualism
  • Vocabulary differences between L1 and L2
  • Bilingual Language Development
  • Important Bilingual Milestones
  • Bilingual Milestones and Age of Onset
  • Simultaneous dual language learning
  • Simultaneous dual language learning & language delay
  • Conclusion
  • Helpful Smart Speech Therapy Resources
  • References

Would you like a copy? You can find it HERE in my online store.

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Bilingual Therapy Resources Linky Party!

bilingual therapy resources link upThe Dabbling Speechie is having a bilingual therapy resources Linky Party so I decided to join in and write a few posts on what I am using and referencing when it comes to assessment and treatment of bilingual and multicultural children.

First up I’d like to tell you a little bit about the post I wrote and materials I created for this purpose.

A few months ago I did a post on Integrating aspects of multiculturalism into group language therapy sessions where I offered some suggestions on how to integrate multiculturalism into your group therapy sessions, which included books, activities and websites.

Below are a few products I’ve created for bilingual/multicultural assessment and treatment purposes:

I also created specific products relevant to comprehensive data collection and narrative assessment of multicultural children

  • General Assessment and Treatment Start-Up Bundle
    • This product bundle contains 5 downloads for general speech language assessment and treatment planning and includes:
      1. Speech Language Assessment Checklist for a Preschool Child
      2. Speech Language Assessment Checklist for a School-Aged Child
      3. Creating a Functional Therapy Plan: Therapy Goals & SOAP Note Documentation
      4. Selecting Clinical Materials for Pediatric Therapy
      5. Recognizing Speech-Language delay in school age-children: a tutorial for teachers
  • The Checklists Bundle
    • This product contains 4 checklists relevant to screening and assessment in speech language pathology
      1. Speech Language Assessment Checklist for a Preschool Child
      2. Speech Language Assessment Checklist for a School-Aged Child
      3. Auditory Processing Deficits (APD) Checklist for School Aged Children
      4. Social Pragmatic Deficits Checklist for School Aged Children
  • Narrative Assessment Bundle
    • This product contains ontains 3 downloads relevant to narrative assessment
      1. Narrative Assessments of Preschool and School Aged Children
      2. Understanding Complex Sentences
      3. Vocabulary Development: Working with Disadvantaged Populations

What materials are you using to assess your bilingual/multicultural students?

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Why “good grades” do not automatically rule out “adverse educational impact”

Image result for good grades?As a speech-language pathologist (SLP) working with school-age children, I frequently assess students whose language and literacy abilities adversely impact their academic functioning.   For the parents of school-aged children with suspected language and literacy deficits as well as for the SLPs tasked with screening and evaluating them, the concept of ‘academic impact’ comes up on daily basis. In fact, not a day goes by when I do not see a variation of the following question: “Is there evidence of academic impact?”, being discussed in a variety of Facebook groups dedicated to speech pathology issues. Continue reading Why “good grades” do not automatically rule out “adverse educational impact”

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Social Communication and Describing Skills: What is the Connection?

When it comes to the identification of social communication deficits, SLPs are in a perpetual search for quick and reliable strategies that can assist us in our quest of valid and reliable confirmation of social communication difficulties. The problem is that in some situations, it is not always functional to conduct a standardized assessment, while in others a standardized assessment may have limited value (e.g., if the test doesn’t assess or limitedly assesses social communication abilities).

So what type of tasks are sensitive to social communication deficits? Quite a few, actually. For starters, various types of narratives are quite sensitive to social communication impairment. From fictional to expository, narrative analysis can go a long way in determining whether the student presents with appropriate sequencing skills, adequate working memory, age-level grammar, and syntax, adequate vocabulary, pragmatics, perspective taking abilities, critical thinking skills, etc. But what if one doesn’t have the time to record and transcribe a narrative retelling, what then? Actually, a modified version of a narrative assessment task can still reveal a great deal about the student’s social communication abilities.

For the purpose of this particular task, I like to use photos depicting complex social communication scenarios. Then I simply ask the student: “Please describe  what is happening in this photo.”  Wait a second you may say: “That’s it? This is way too simple! You can’t possibly determine if someone has social communication deficits based on a single photo description!”

I beg to differ. Here’s an interesting fact about students with social communication deficits. Even the ones with FSIQ in the superior range of functioning (>130) with exceptionally large lexicons, still present with massive deficits when it comes to providing coherent and cohesive descriptions and summaries.

Here are just a few reasons why this happens. Research indicates that students with social communication difficulties present with Gestalt Processing deficits or difficulty “seeing/grasping the big picture”(Happe & Frith, 2006). Rather than focusing on the main idea, they tend to focus on isolated details due to which they have a tendency to provide an incomplete/partial information about visual scenes, books, passages, stories, or movies. As such, despite possessing an impressive lexicon, such students may say about the above picture: “She is drawing” or “They are outside” and omit a number of relevant to the picture details.

Research also confirms that another difficulty that students with impaired social communication abilities present with is assuming perspectives of others (e.g., relating to others, understanding/interpreting their beliefs, thoughts, feelings, etc.) (Kaland et al, 2007). As such they may miss relevant visual clues pertaining to how the boy and girl are feeling, what they are thinking, etc.

Students with social communication deficits also present with anaphoric referencing difficulties.  Rather than referring to individuals in books and pictures by name or gender, they may nonspecifically utilize personal pronouns ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’ to refer to them. Consequently, they may describe the individuals in the above photo as follows: “She is drawing and the boy is looking”; or “They are sitting at the table outside.”

Finally, students with social communication deficits may produce poorly constructed run-on (exceedingly verbose) or fragmented utterances (very brief) lacking in coherence and cohesion to describe the main idea in the above scenario (Frith, 1989).

Of course, by now many of you want to know regarding what constitutes as pragmatically appropriate descriptions for students of varying ages. For that, you can visit a thread in the SLPs for Evidence-Based Practice Group on Facebook entitled: GIANT POST WITH FREE LINKS AND RESOURCES ON THE TOPIC OF TYPICAL SPEECH AND LANGUAGE MILESTONES OF CHILDREN 0-21 YEARS OF AGE  to locate the relevant milestones by age.

Interested in seeing these assessment strategies in action? Download a FREEBIE HERE and see for yourselves.

References:

  • Frith, U., (1989). Autism: Explaining the Enigma. Blackwell, Oxford.
  • Happe, F. & Frith, U. (2006). The weak coherence account: Detail-focused cognitive style in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36 (1), 5-25.
  • Kaland, N., Callesen, K., Moller-Nielsen, A., Mortensen, E. L., & Smith, L. (2007). Performance of children and adolescents with Asperger Syndrome or High-functioning Autism on advanced theory of mind tasks. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 38, 1112-1123.