Chapter 7 Study Questions- Assessment and Intervention for Emerging Language

What is involved in family centered intervention for toddlers?

-> Children with emerging language is primarily in the context of the family. Practice for this developmental level, too, must be family-centered in order to succeed. -> Considerations that are primary in working with families in early intervention: • Spending time with the family to learn about their vision for the child and discussing what parent would like to see their child do as a result of intervention • Finding out what families expect from the program at the outset and discussing expectations in order to come to a consensus about what is reasonable to expect • Including the family's assessment of the child in the assessment report; writing the report in the words used by the family • Including multiple ways for families to be involved in the child's program; providing choices and options • Working together with families to choose natural environments as a source of learning opportunities • Reviewed progress with families to make sure new skills are used consistently across natural environments • Identifying important people with whom the child needs to practice communication skills • Working with families to find ways to use children's interests to involve them in everyday learning opportunities • Providing families with opportunities to be involved in both direct work with their child and acquiring new knowledge and skills for interacting with their child. • Enabling parents to decide on the correct balance for their family

levels of play & gesture- 5

24-36 mo. hierarchical pretend: 5a: planned single act symbolic games 5b: planned multi-scheme symbolic acts -- finds the iron, its it down, searches for the cloth, tossing aside several objects, when cloth is found, irons it.

methods to assess semantic-syntactic development in children with EL

1. assess relative frequency of word combo vs. single word production 2. examine the range of semantic relations expressed in multiword utterances.

2 methods for collecting a speech sample for a child with EL

1. sample audio recorded in the home 2. parent diary

what considerations go into choosing the first lexicon?

1. words that are functional and fulfill a broad range of communicative purposes. 2. words that can help them accomplish their social goals. 3. phonological shape and composition of the word should be established.

levels of play & gesture- 1

18 mo. pre symbolic scheme

levels of play & gesture-2

18-24 mo. autosymbolic scheme, pretending is present, symbolism is directly involved with the child's body

levels of play & gesture- 3

24-36 mo. single-scheme symbolic games, pretending at activités of other people or objects such as dogs, vehicles, etc.

levels of play & gesture- 4

24-36 mo. combinatorial symbolic games: 4a: single scheme combinations -- drinks from own toy bottle, then feeds doll from bottle 4b: multi-scheme combinations -- puts empty spoon to mother's mouth, then experimenter, then self

Communication skills seen in normally developing 18 month olds

50-100 words producing word combinations 1st 50 words: nouns, adj, verbs, social terms Functions: request objects or actions, to establish joint attn, or to engage in social interactions. produces 2 communicative acts/minute agent-action instructions semantic relations: combine words to produce new meanings use of comprehension without cues

why is it important to look at what the child understands and what comprehension strategies they use

It is important to look at what the child understands and the strategies they use to know if the child understands the words without non-linguistic cues. Comprehension in young children is very context dependent. After we know a word is fully understood then we can test the understanding of verbs. • If comprehension level is on pair with communicative intention level, a nonspeaking child can be said to have a relatively isolated language production deficit. • If comprehension level lags behind communicative intentions, a more pervasive language disorder is present.

formal methods for assessing comprehension

PPVT Communication and social behavioral scales Receptive expressive emergent language scale Sequenced inventory of communicative development

Emerging Language

Period in which conventional words are just beginning to appear as viable forms of communication. Normally developing children-- toddler range: 18-36 months

purpose of a play assessment

To decide if the child has prerequisites to learn language. Decide what activities, materials, and contexts that will be the most appropriate to encourage that learning and the conceptual referents on which it might focus.

under what conditions would you include work on receptive language in the communication program for a child with EL. What methods would you use?

When comprehension deficit is identified ♣ Standard ILS techniques- used to provide multiple opportunities for the child to observe how language works to map the nonlinguistic context onto words. Can be taught through parent modeling. Encourage parents to provide super-normal levels of facilitative stimuli.

Communication skills seen in normally developing 24 month old

average of 5-7 communicative acts/minute expressive vocab +/- 100 words multiword utterances increase, although still use some nonverbal acts. new communicative intentions: answer, acknowledge, request info. understanding is not far above production: 2-3 word sentences. Avg of 50% intelligibility Agent-action-object with probable event strategy

Communication skills seen in normally developing 30 month old

avg. expressive vocab: 300 words (+/- 100 words). object action words kinship terms spatial terms question words color, and shape words grammatical morhemes, verb phrase making, questions, negatives 3-5 word sentences intelligibility: 70% agent-action-object with probable event strategy semantic relations: combine words to produce new meanings.

Routine or script therapy (hybrid method)

can be used to establish daily routines in games or day-to-day activities and then playfully violate the routines in hopes of eliciting a protest or correction from the client.

Do you think adult speech to children with EL should be telegraphic? why or why not?

children should hear sentences that contain all the required grammatical elements, even if we expect that the child will delete them in is or her own productions. cannot cause any harm, may do some good naturalistic form of input, and parents who are involved in delivering intervention will probably feel more comfortable speaking to their child "correctly."

what methods would you use to increase the vocab size of a child with EL

encourage parents to use a rich mix of words. provide a range of labels for objects, events, and relations in the clear, here-and-now context.

methods to assess phonological skills

given the strong correlation between phonology and lexical development, need to know what sounds the child can produce to choose words child can learn. - collect consonant inventory - assess syllable structure - assess relative phonology

Milieu teaching techniques (hybrid method)

increases the rate of communication in a hybrid way. Parents are trained to use prelinguistic milieu teaching (PMT) to increase intentional communication in children with developmental delays.

how can nonverbal communication be assessed? what are 3 dimensions of the assessment?

observing how the client interacts with their parents bc communication is very low at this level. 3 dimensions: - range of communicative function expressed - frequency of communication - means by which the child attempts to convey his or her message

cultural differences in parent-child communication

parents do not always talk to their toddlers the way middle-class contemporary American parents do. Many cultures use a routine style: providing repetitive predictable language that is initiated by the parent rather than the child. some cultures use child-reared where they encourage the child to listen. toddlers in these cultures learn to talk about the same rate as in our own.

semantic realtions

the ability to produce new meanings that are not part of either of the components of the words in the utterance is one of the accomplishments of children in the 18-36 month age range.

Would you work on diminishing phonological process use by a child with EL?

the goal is to focus on EXPANDING THE REPERTOIRE of sounds and syllable shapes. Goal: get the child talking and to increase the range of phonological structures available to support this talk.

if comprehension skills are found to be BELOW those expected for the level of communication demonstrated, the actives to foster receptive language skills

then activities to foster receptive language skills such as focused stimulation activities and ILS should be an important component of the management program

what methods would you use to increase nonverbal communication skills in a child with emerging language

use communication temptations-- using a hybrid method. not requiring specific responses, but structure the situation and provide multiple opportunities and models for the child.

describe the decision process for determining whether and in what areas children with emerging language can benefit from communication invention.

whether the child demonstrates function or symbolic play behavior that would normally accompany the use of conventional language. - if the nonspeaking child uses these play behaviors, intervention should focus on developing communication and modeling the use of objects for conventional and pretend play schemes. - if the freq./range of communication behavior is found to be limited, we would use modeling and communication temptations to tty to increase the freq. of intentional behavior in addition to heightening the rate of vocal production.

Two word combinations: CD, CC, and hybrid approach for a child with EL

♣ CD- modeling- the model and client alternate their productions until the child produces three consecutive correct version. The child should continue until the criterion is met. ♣ Hybrid- script therapy approach- the clinician might sing a song and then say something wrong so the child has the opportunity to correct the clinician. ♣ CC- indirect language stimulation- using different ways to change the utterance the child produced- expansion, extension, recasts, open-ended and verbal reflective questions

formal tools for 18-36 month age range

♣ Language Developmental Survey ♣ MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories ♣ Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales- Developmental Profile ♣ Preschool Functional Communication Inventory ♣ Interdisciplinary Clinical Assessment of Young Children with Developmental Disabilities ♣ Alternative Approaches to Assessing Young Children ♣ Assessment, Evaluation and Programming System for Infants and Children

Rationale for using informal assessment procedures for children with EL

♣ Low structure interactions in which toys are accessible and the adult follows the child's lead. This encourages the child to call the adult's attention to himself and his actions and prevents an over-representation of request acts. The same toys in the pay assessment can be used here.