Language Disorders:from Infancy through Adolescence:

Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Communicating

Rhea Paul, PhD, CCC-SLPProfessor, Yale Child Study Center

New Haven, Connecticut

Courtenay F. Norbury, PhD

Senior Research Fellow Department of Psychology Royal Holloway University of London London,England

pages 595-600

issues in intervention at the advanced language stage

rational for services to adolescents

there are good reasons for continuing to provide services to adolescents in advanced language stages:

1.the ante is continually "upped" as the student proceeds through the secondary grads. students may need special services in secondary school to allow them to maintain the same level of performance in these new high-demand settings that they were able to achieve in earlier grades.

2.a transition from concrete to formal operational thinking that typically takes place during adolescence is necessary to succeed in the secondary school curriculum.

3.adminstrator often ask whether the communication needs of students with LLD cannot be managed in the context of the mainstream language arts curriculum,again questioning the need for special services.

4.communication programs targeted for adolescents pay off in terms of reduced dropout rates have documented that every potential dropout who stays in school saves taxpayers money-in terms of the costs of adult literacy programs,welfare,basic jobo training,and incarceration-that would have to be spent later if the student dropped out of school.

the role of the SLP in the secondary curriculum

we can support students,through all these service delivery models,in elaborating their vocabulary;increasing their understanding and use of figurative language,verbal reasoning, and complex syntax;using oral and written formats to increase comprehension and production of the genres relevant at this stage of development,including conversation, classroom discourse,narrative strategies.

student-centered intervention

engaging the client and fostering a feeling of collaboration between the teen and the clinician to maximize our chances for success.

drawing up a communication contract with the adolescent,the contract can state the goals listed in the IEP or ITP and can ask the student to take responsibility for achieving them.

a sample communication contract for sb (p.597)

developing self-esteem and increasing motivation in our adolescent students.

years of difficulty in school may have led these students to feelings of inadequacy, reduced motivation,and a reluctance to devote effort to additional intervention activities.for this reason,students in the advanced language stage may need counseling, as well as language intervention.counseling in this context as talking with adolescents about their communica-tion problems,giving them information,and providing them with support in facing their feelings about their disability,adolescence is a turbulent time of life for everyone,and students who are having trouble communicating with others,establishing peer relations,and succeeding in school are likely to be even more frustrated and confused than typical teens.

products of intervention in the advanced language stage

new intervention purposes at the advanced language level 

intervention can attempt to eliminate or "cure" a disorder,change or ameliorate the disorder, or change the way the client responds to the disorder by providing compensatory strategies.

a learning strategies approach

techniques,priciples,or rules that will facilitate the acquisition,manipulation,integration, storage,and retrieval of information across situations and settings.

knowledge is infromation we have;for example,vocabulary knowledge is having the information to link a referent to a word.

a skill is something we can do ;for example,syntactic skills allow us to fromulate sentences.

a strategies is a deliberate attempt to use the knowledge and skill we have effective;for example,deciding to summarize a passage we read in order to remember its content is a reading comprehension strategy.

the functional versus the academic curriculum

"survival communication",the language skills that allow people to function successfully and autonomously in their homes,jobs,and communities.

functional language skills include the ability to ask questions,follow verbal and written instructions,initiate and maintain conversations,use language to initiate and maintain social interactions and relationships,negotiate and solve interpersonal conflicts,gain basic information from writing,use written language to provide basic information on forms, questionnaires,letters,and so on.

processes of intervention in the advanced language stage

in the advanced language stage,we want to look also at intervention aimed not only at remediating deficits but at teaching compensatroy strategies.

basic skills approaches to intervention in the advanced language stage

academic communication 

semantics

words and usages at the literate end of the oral-literate continuum.sophisticated and abstract vocabulary and precise word choice are among the central features of academic language.students with LLD typically have nonspecific knowledge of word meanings and do not spontaneously use strategies for learning new words from context.

the literate lexicon

vocabulary was one of the greatest weaknesses found in a sample of juvenile offenders, suggesting that students with poor vocabularies are at high risk for getting into various kinds of trouble.word knowledge is essential to understanding what we hear and read, vocabulary development is a critical area for students with LLD.

identify words critical to students' understanding before they read a curricular assignment and to pre-teach these essential words.identifying the words students should have learned from reading the material and providing additonal instruction and practice to be sure students with disabilities acquire the material's critical new vocabulary.

direct instruction invloves activities such as giving students lists of words to look up in the dictionary,define orally,use in sentences,find synonyms for, and select correct meaning.

dictionary features,such as alphabetical organization,use of guide words on each page, pronunciation keys,and selection from among several meaning 

when using direct instructional methods,it is important to remember that practice is necessary to achieve solid knowledge.hearing,definding or using a new word only once will not make it a permanent part of the student's lexicon,clinicians need to provide multiple opportunities for students to interact with their new words.

expand understand of words already in students' vocabulary

help students consolidate what they know about words and to extend their current meanings.

word meanings

for example,

                                藥物

    醫用                                                       違禁藥

   處方藥                  非處方藥                     海洛因

巴必妥酸鹽                 布洛芬                       迷藥

安非他命                     醋氨酚                      大麻

                                                                  可卡因