CHAPTER SIX
ASSESSING AND TEACHING LANGUAGE
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Speech and Language
Language is defined as “a socially shared code or conventional system for
representing concepts through the use of arbitrary symbols and rule-governed
combinations of those symbols” (Owens, 2008, p. 4).
Speech involves the actual mechanics or motor act of verbal expression. Thus,
whereas speech includes spoken utterances to convey meaning, language
indicates a person’s knowledge of the linguistic concepts on which speech is
based. Moreover, language comprises receptive skills (understanding) and
expressive skills (use) and includes both written and oral forms.
Terms
Terms such as specific language impairment, language delay, and language
disorder generally are used with students who are having difficulty learning
language in the absence of any intellectual, sensory, or emotional problems.
Definition of Language Disorder
The impairment or deviant development of comprehension and/or use of a spoken,
written, and/or other symbol system. The disorder may involve (1) the form of
language (phonologic, morphologic, and syntactic systems), (2) the content of
language (semantic system), and/or (3) the function of language in
communication (pragmatic system) in any combination. (hard to read if you have
language disorders)
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (1992, p. 949)
Theories
Theories of language acquisition fall within three major camps:
• Behavioristic: (Skinner) relies on learning principles to explain
language acquisition. Behaviorists believe that the infant begins
with no knowledge of language but processes the ability to learn it.
Child learns through reinforcement of imitation. Behaviorists
emphasize environmental influences and the universal laws of
learning, namely operant conditioning principles.
• Nativistic (or psycholinguistic): (Chomsy, Lenneberg, and McNeil)
Nativistics believe that humans are “prewired” for language
development and that the environment simply triggers its
emergence.
• Interactionistic (or cognitive): (Piaget) theorizes that the child acquires
language through the interaction of perceptual-cognitive capacities
and experiences. The child’s environment and neurological
maturation determine learning.
Components of Language (table 6.1 p. 195)
Phonology
• The sound system of a language and the linguistic rules that govern the
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sound combinations
A phoneme is a unit of sound that combines with other sounds to
form words. A phoneme is the smallest unit of language and it
distinguished from the other language components in that a
phoneme alone, such as /s/ or /b/, does not convey meaning
About 44 phonemes in the English language.
Phonological Deficit: most commonly in the child who is
developmentally delayed in consonant acquisition. Child my omit a
consonant, substitute one consonant for another, or distort a
consonant
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Morphology
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The linguistic rule system that governs the structure of words and the
construction of word forms from the basic elements of meaning
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A morpheme is the smallest unit or segment of language that
conveys meaning. Two different types of morphemes exist: free
and bound.
Free morpheme: is one that has meaning and may stand-alone. Ex.
root words
Bound morphemes: is one that may not stand-alone. Ex. prefixes
and suffixes.
 Morphological deficits: Students may not use appropriate inflectional endings in
their speech. An elementary school student may not use the third-person s on
verbs (he walk), may not use s on nouns or pronouns to show possession
(mommy coat), or may not use –er on adjectives ( her dog is small than mine).
Older students may lack more advanced morphemes of irregular past tense or
irregular plurals (they may use such forms as “drived” instead of “drove” or
“mans” instead of “men”)
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Syntax
• The linguistic rule system that governs the order and combination of words
to form sentences, and the relationships among the elements within a
sentence
• Syntax is a system of rules governing how words or morphemes are
combined to make grammatically correct sentences.
• Syntactic Deficits: use sentences that lack the length or syntactic
complexity expected for their age. Example: 6-year old uses a mean
sentence length of three words may say “Where Daddy go?”
instead of “Where did Daddy go?”
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Semantics
• The psycholinguistic system that patterns the content of an utterance,
intent, and meanings of words and sentences
• Semantics refers to language meaning and is concerned with the
meaning of individual words as well as the meaning produced by
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combinations of words.
Semantic Deficits: developmental delay in word meaning is
observed in youngsters who use or understand a limited number of
words. The limited vocabulary may be in specific aresa, such as
adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, or pronouns,
Pragmatics
• The sociolinguistic system that patterns the use of language in
communication, which may be expressed motorically, vocally, or verbally
• Pragmatics refers to the use of language to affect the behavior of
others or to relay information, thus, it “concentrates on language,
as a communication tool tht is used to achieve social ends.”
• Pragmatic deficits: delay in pragmatic is evident when student do
not use functions that are expected for developmental age.
Language Difficulties
Preschool and Kindergarten Students
• Delayed readiness skills
• Unable to follow simple directions
• Immature-sounding speech
• Utterances and vocabulary may be similar to that of a younger child
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Preschool and Kindergarten Students (cont’d)
• Word-finding difficulties
• Inability to name common objects
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Sound substitutions such as “buzgetti” for “spaghetti”
• Fewer functionally appropriate and accurate responses (“you know” or “that
thing over there,” or describe rather than name objects)
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Preschool and Kindergarten Students (cont’d)
• Unable to make one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds
• Difficulty discriminating between sounds
• Frequently play by themselves or exhibit more nonplay and parallel (next to
someone) play than do their peers (Roth & Clark, 1987).
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Behaviorally, children with language problems may have attention deficits, need
additional time to understand information and formulate ideas for expression, and
have a poor tolerance for frustration.
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Elementary Students
• Limited ability to identify sounds, difficulty analyzing and synthesizing sound
sequences, and problems segmenting words into grammatical units.
• Difficulty with temporal and spatial concepts, as well as abstract concepts
such as before-after, neither-nor, some, if/then, and
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In the early elementary grades, the use of manipulatives begins to decrease,
and the student must gain information from the teacher’s verbal
presentation.
As the language complexity increases with each grade advance, the student
must keep up with the demands of the instructional language as well as
absorb the curriculum content.
By fourth grade, most of the curriculum content is presented in print, and
the student with language problems may have particular difficulty making
the transition from narrative (listening) to expository (reading) writing.
K-3 learn to read; 4th on read to learn
Deficits in text comprehension
Elementary students with language problems continue to exhibit difficulties in their
use of language.
• Often reflected in the student’s social skills
• May exhibit some of the same behaviors as they did when they were
younger, such as failing to adjust to their listener’s needs and having
difficulty joining an ongoing conversation
• May misinterpret social cues, fail to think of others’ thoughts and feelings,
and be unable to predict the consequences of their behavior
Secondary Students
• Tend to be passive learners
• Often appear to lack the metacognitive strategies necessary to perform
complex academic tasks
• Teacher is faced with the challenge of designing interventions to assist
students in overcoming or compensating for their language disabilities so
that they can meet the increased demands of secondary school.
• Lack the ability to use and understand higher level syntax, semantics, and
pragmatics
• Are expected to organize their time and complete assignments and, thus,
they must follow both oral and written instruction to complete work
independently
• Receptive and expressive language difficulties affect their ability to learn
effectively. This creates problems:
• Gaining information from class lectures and textbooks
• Completing homework
• Following classroom rules
• Demonstrating command of knowledge through test taking
• Expressing thoughts in writing
• Passing minimum competency exams
• Participating in classroom discussions.
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Intervention may change from a content-oriented approach to a functional
approach in which the student is taught strategies to deal with everyday
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situations.
• Problems in comprehension of auditory language also are persistent in
adolescents and result in short-term memory problems and a decrease in the
understanding of linguistic relationships (Riedlinger-Ryan & Shewan, 1984).
• Frequently, adolescent students with language problems have difficulty
organizing information and correctly associating or categorizing it for later
retrieval.
• Poor organization and categorization result in other problems:
• Poor notetaking, test-taking, and study skills, as well as difficulty
integrating
• Poor organization and categorization result in other problems, such as poor
notetaking, test-taking, and study skills, as well as difficulty integrating
information.
• Difficulties also may persist in language use in the awareness of social cues,
interpretation of the motives and emotions of others, and use of appropriate
language.
• Because adolescents frequently are aware of their difficulties, behaviors such
as aggression, frustration, lack of motivation, withdrawal, and inattention
may arise (Hazel & Schumaker, 1988; Seidenberg, 1988; Wiig & Semel,
1984).
Bilingual and Culturally Diverse Students
Some students with limited English proficiency or nonstandard dialects are
misdiagnosed as having learning or language impairments because of their
difficulty on culturally biased standardized tests (Payne & Taylor, 2006).
As the bilingual population in the United States increases, the teacher must
distinguish between students who are unfamiliar with the language and culture
and students with a true language problem.
Bilingual students with language problems may need services somewhat different
from those for students whose primary language is standard English.
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Salend and Fradd (1986) note that bilingual students have the following needs:
• Access to teachers who are proficient in English as well as in the student’s
native language.
• Use of nonbiased assessment and instruction to formulate appropriate
individualized educational programs.
• Exposure to curriculum and alternative instructional strategies that promote
the academic and social relevance of instruction.
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To determine if a student’s problems are due to language difficulties, a learning
disability, or lack of exposure to effective instruction, Salend (2008) suggests that
the following factors should be considered in assessing second-language learners:
• Length of residence in the United States
• School attendance patterns
• School instructional history
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Cultural background
Performance in comparison to peers
Home life
Health and developmental history
Assessment of Language Skills
5 major reasons for language assessment:
• To identify students with potential language problems
• To determine a student’s language developmental level
• To plan educational objectives and design appropriate intervention programs
• To monitor the student’s progress
• To evaluate the language intervention program
Language Service Delivery Models
Pullout Therapy Model: the language specialist takes students from their
classes and instructs those with similar difficulties in homogenous
groups.
Concerns: students do not like to be singled out, students miss
coursework, fragmentation of services
Classroom-Based Language Models: involve a new delivery of traditional
services, and some school systems use them in an attempt to improve
the services to students with language problems and to integrate
therapy goals with the student’s academic needs
• Team Teaching: language specialist teaches with the general or
special classroom teacher. The key to this format is that the
language specialist actually teaches a portion of the curriculum.
• Self Contained Classroom Teaching: the language specialist teaches in a
self-contained language class. This format is common with
younger students, and the language specialist is responsible for
teaching content areas including reading, math, science, and social
studies to students who need particular interventions in language
processing and production
• One-to-0ne Intervention: the language specialist must maintain close
contact with the classroom teacher to provide appropriate
interventions to each student regarding specific content areas,
study skills, writing, and vocabulary
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Staff, Curriculum, or Program Development: language specialist can aid
students indirectly by providing staff, curriculum, or program development to a
school or district.
• Consultation: language specialist can serve as a consultant to the
various professionals who interact with students, such as general
or special education teachers, psychologists, physicians, nurses,
social workers, or counselors. The language specialist consults
with persons who provide language interventions to the student,
and an effort is made through the consultation to determine
methods to improve the student’s communication.
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Strategies-Based Model: focuses on teaching specific learning strategies to
students and is especially appealing to language specialists who work
with middle and secondary school students.
Teaching Language Skills
General Principles:
• The language specialist should be aware of young students with language
disorders who are dismissed from language services, because academic
problems may resurface later due to a breakdown in the language system
and increased curriculum demands.
• Language screenings should consist of more than one test and be sensitive
to subtle forms of language disorders.
• Students suspected of having learning problems should receive routine
language evaluations that emphasize language and auditory processing.
• School officials should consider service delivery alternatives to the traditional
pullout model, and language specialists should focus on both contextualized
and decontextualized aspects of language.
• Professionals should collaborate to devise a coordinated program for
students with language problems rather than implement a variety of isolated
programs.
• The delivery of instruction in learning strategies should be language
sensitive.
• The curriculum in language intervention should be relevant to the general
curriculum, respond to setting demands, reflect areas of academic concern,
integrate spoken and written language systems, and focus on generalization.
• The individual strategy preferences of students with language problems
should be considered, and students should be encouraged to determine
which strategies are successful in a given situation.
• Intervention should encourage student accountability and responsibility.
• Effective interventions from other disciplines should be applied.
Teaching Language Skills
Strategies for increasing language comprehension
ask the student to repeat or parphrase directions or instructions to the
teacher or a peer to ensure comprehension
to facilitate listening, arrange classroom seating to limit distractions
from doorways and windows and to maximize the use of visual aids
 when introducing a new concept or skill, use vocabulary that is
familiar to the student and explain new vocabulary words by using
familiar terms
to teach specific memory strategies to help students organize,
categorize, and store new information for later retrieval.
Strategies for increasing language production
expect students to speak occasionally in incomplete sentences
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because this is normal for discourse
teach language in various natural settings rather than only in isolated
groups. Also, teach language skills in the connection with other
curriculum content
use structured language programs that provide adequate
opportunities to practice a new skill as well as interactive activities for
applying the skill to relevant contexts.
Imitation and Modeling Strategies
imitative behavior that is mimicry, the student gives a one-to-one,
literal matching response for each stimulus statement
modeling: involves acquiring an abstract language rule without giving
an immediate response to the stimulus
Language Activities
To teach is + verb + ing (is jumping)
To teach plural morpheme s on regular plural nouns
To teach possessive pronouns (her, his, their)
To teach classification of associated words
To teach ed on regular verbs (walked, jumped
To teach the prepositions in, on, out of, in front of, in back of, and beside
To teach classification of part/whole relationships
To teach classification by function
To classify objects that belong to the same class (animals, foods, houses, vehicles)
To teach synonyms
To increase auditory discrimination between two phonemes
To teach negatives
To extend the use of linguistic forms to other environments
To use language as an effective communicator
To teach the classification of where, when, and what phrases
To teach vocabulary likenesses
To teach the use of relative clauses
To use the conjunctions and, but, because, and so
To teach paraphrasing
To teach employment vocabulary words to secondary students
Instructional Games in Language
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His, Her, or Their
What Goes Together?
The Deck
Whose Is It?
Say the Whole Sentence
Phonetic Bingo
Fishing for Blends
Two-Way Words
Sentence Game
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Can you Answer with a Question?
Build a Sentence
Prefix Bingo
Deal a Sentence
Conjunction Square
SELF-CORRECTING LANGUAGE MATERIALS
Opposites
Time Slot
Flip-Siders
Make a Question
When Did It Happen?
Word Endings with Meanings
Make It Say a Sentence
Does It Mean the Same Thing?
Descriptors
Indirect Requests