Understanding Students with Communication Disorders Chapter 6 What is communication? • • • • • Receiving information Understanding information Expressing information Expressing feelings Expressing ideas Speech Language Disorders • • • • Speech disorder Language disorder Receptive language disorder Expressive language disorder Cultural Diversity in Communication • Cooperative group activities and role-playing • Highlight the value of cultural diversity: contributions of events, celebrations, and people • Guest speakers from differing cultures • Parental involvement Incidence • 18.8% ages 6-21 get speech/language service • 55% children ages 3-5 served under IDEA for speech/language • Most children spend majority of their day in general education Typical Speech Development • Person pushes air from lungs • Muscles in larynx move vocal folds producing sound • Larynx sits on top of the trachea and contains the vocal folds where voice is produced • Person forms sounds by varying the position of lips, tongue, and lower jaw Language • • • • • Phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics Pragmatics How it all fits Functionalist Language Theory Pragmatics Syntax Phonology Morphology Semantics Phonology • Use of sounds to make meaningful syllables and words • Encompasses the rules and sequencing of individual speech sounds (phonemes) • Study and use of individual sound units in a language and the rules by which they are combined and recombined to create larger language units. • Phonemes are the unit of sound such as /s/ or /b/ , they do not convey meaning. • Phonemes alter meaning of words when combined (e.g., sat to bat). Phonological Deficits • Frequently appear as articulation disorders. – Child omits a consonant: “oo” for you – Child substitutes one consonant: “wabbit” for rabbit – Discrimination: child hears “go get the nail” instead of mail What is a Phoneme? • Different linguistic units: large to small • The smallest unit of sound in our language that makes a difference to its meaning. – Dog /d/ /o/ /g/ – Sun /s/ /u/ /n/ – Man /m/ /a/ /n/ What is Morphology? • The system that governs the structure of words • The smallest meaningful unit of speech is called a morpheme • Adds plurals, inflection, affixes, and past tense markers to verbs • For example: changes “swim” to “swam” Syntax • Study of the rules by which words are organized into phrases or sentences in a particular language. • Referred to as the grammar of the language and allows for more complex expression of thoughts and ideas by making references to past and future events. Syntactic Deficits • Lack the length or syntactic complexity (e.g., “Where Daddy go?”). • Problems comprehending sentences that express relationship between direct or indirect objects. • Difficulty with wh questions. Semantics • The larger meaning component of language. • More than single words, includes complex use of vocabulary, including structures such as word categories, word relationships, synonyms, antonyms, figurative language, ambiguities, and absurdities. Semantic Deficits • Limited vocabulary especially in adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, or pronouns. • Longer response time in selecting vocabulary words. • Fail to perceive subtle changes in word meaning: incomplete understanding and misinterpretations. • Figurative language problems. Pragmatics • Knowledge and ability to use language functionally in social or interactive situations. • Integrates all the other language skills, but also requires knowledge and use of rule governing the use of language in social context. Pragmatic Deficits • Problems understanding indirect requests (e.g., may say yes when asked “Must you play the piano?”). • May enter conversations in a socially unacceptable fashion or fail to take turns talking. • Difficulty staying on topic. Social Interaction Theories • Communication skills are learned through social interactions • Language development is the outcome of a child’s drive for attachment with his or her world • Vygotsky: children learn by doing with more experienced partners (guided learning) Language Development • Within first month - respond to human voices • 3 months - turn, smile, and coo • 12 months - make sounds when spoken to, vary pitch and intensity, and experiment with rhythm, may say first words • 12-24 months - vocabularies increase to 200-300 words Language Development Cont. • 3 year olds - understand simple questions and prepositions (in, on, under) and follow 2-step directions, have vocabulary of 900-1,000 words • Preschoolers - ask W (5) and H questions and have vocabularies of 1,500-1,600 words • Age 6 - use irregular verbs “be,” “go”, “run” and “swim” and have vocabularies of 2,600 words Speech Disorders • Articulation disorder – – – – Substitutions Omissions Additions Distortions • Apraxia of speech Voice Disorders • • • • Pitch Duration Intensity Resonance – Hyponasality – Hypernasality Fluency Disorders • Interruptions in the flow of speaking – – – – Hesitate Repeat themselves Use fillers such as “umm” Stuttering Organic Causes • • • • • • • • • • • • Nervous system Muscular system Chromosomes Formation of speech mechanism Hereditary malformation Prenatal injuries Toxic disturbances Tumors Traumas Seizures, Infections diseases Muscular diseases Vascular impairments Functional Disorders • Present when the cause of the impairment is unknown - no physical cause Collaboration with Teachers • • • • Supportive teaching Complementary teaching Consultation Team teaching Augmentative and Alternative Communication • Integrated groups of components that supplement the communication abilities of individuals who cannot communicate effectively through gestures, speaking, and/or writing AAC Devices • A symbol set – – – – – – – – – – – Gestures Photographs Manual sign sets/systems Pictographs (symbols that look like what they represent) Ideographs (more abstract symbols) Printed words Objects Partial objects Miniature objects Spoken words Braille • A means for selecting the symbols Activity • Get into your group • Read over Box 6-3 • Answer questions 1-4