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An invisible disability: Language disorders in high school students and the implications for classroom teachers
An invisible disability: Language disorders in high school students and the implications for classroom teachers
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Article Summary:
An invisible disability:
Language disorders in high school students
and the implications for classroom teachers
Language disorders in high school students
and the implications for classroom teachers
There are two ways in which this speech pathology view of language is relevant to high schools. Firstly, the language skills based on literacy require an underpinning of oral language development. This is especially so by the time of high school, when the language level of written and read material begins to equal and then exceed the spoken system in complexity. This point may seem obvious, but it is often the case that where disorders in language in the classroom sense appear (e.g. problems with reading, writing, debating, expressing logical reasoning, and so on), oral language skills are not examined for their potential cause or contribution to the 'language' problem, when they may be of vital significance. In other words, such students may have a language disorder. Secondly, most classroom teaching and learning, even at high school level, is conducted orally. Teachers talk through new material, give verbal instructions, students ask questions out loud to clarify points or find new information, feedback or roundup of material is most often given verbally, and so on. If there are problems with the oral language system (i.e., language disorders), students will fail to learn and deal appropriately with this oral classroom environment.
How to spot students with language disorders
It is clear from the discussion so far that language disorder may not look like language disorder in the first instance. Communication is an active, interactive process, and a history of poor verbal skills can lead to an adolescent who is frustrated, unsuccessful, unhappy and unpopular. Social skills are inseparable from verbal skills. It is very important for high school students to be popular with their peer group, and to do so they need to be good at jokes, verbal banter, teasing, chatting up, verbal conflict, self-justifications, excuses and a variety of other complex verbal comprehension and expressive language skills. When they are not good at these things, they are at risk of developing social and emotional problems.
There seems to be two broad groups of students with language disorder in high school, one where language was always delayed and where there is likely to be a history of speech pathology involvement. The other group appear to develop early language reasonably well, but have problems with their oral language system that are not uncovered until forced by the higher level demands of school and literacy.
Table 1: Signs of language disorder in high school students
Problems with speaking and listening
• seems unable to follow verbal instructions
• reluctant to speak
• talkative, but talk contains little real substance
• tells stories badly
• more grammatical errors than peers
• stereotypes - clichés and overuse of certain words and phrases. May use a lot of slang and swear words - vernacular language
• problems explaining the whys and wherefores of things - can't put the complex grammar together
• only deal well with concrete and here-and-now matters. Abstract language and ideas are very problematic
• taking a long time to respond; problems processing the information
• shows word finding difficulties; uses lots of 'ums' searching for words, lots of fillers e.g. 'you know', 'it’s the, oh the, that, um', and non-specific words, e.g. 'thing', 'that', 'stuff'.
• doesn't follow jokes, puns, sarcasm, metaphors. Takes ambiguous language seriously
• says the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong tone of voice; can't hold a conversation following normal expectations
• doesn't pick up non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions or gestures - doesn't know when people want to end a conversation or doesn't recognize the emotional content of people's talk.
Problems with school work
• can't complete homework
• participation in class discussion is badly handled or non-existent
• has trouble gaining information from class lectures and from books
• following the rules of the classroom is inconsistent or does not understand them or the need to follow them
• poor at tests
• can't explain what the problem is, or give reasons and excuses for failure or behavior
• has trouble with the school routines - can't remember the timetable, loses the rooms, can't use a diary well. Poor at working independently
• concentration and attention appear poor
Behavioral Problems
• poor self-esteem
• problems making and maintaining friendships
• lost motivation, cumulative sense of failure
• depression, anger, frustration, withdrawal, aggression
• reluctance to participate, including in remedial work
• inappropriate coping mechanisms, e.g. bullying, clowning, copying (cheating), delinquency and truancy
Sources: McKinley & Larson, 90; NSW Dept. School Ed, 89; Bashir, 89; Buttrill et al, 89.
Teacher Tips:
Table 2: Modifying Teacher Talk to assist students with language disorders
"School has been called a verbal game, and those who know the rules and play the game can succeed" (Bashir, 89). Students in high school have been estimated to spend "75-90% of their day receiving information in the form of lectures, discussions, AV activities and student reports” (Brent, Gough and Robinson, 90). Teachers can make this more successful for students with language disorders by use of the following strategies:
Request feedback: (this can be very illuminating, and may be done routinely of all students; the following are examples of ways to do it),
- ask students if they can follow the content and the speed with which it is being presented.
- ask the class to write down (anonymously) what they thought the point was of a lesson, and hand it in.
Check for common misunderstandings and give feed- back at the next lesson
- ask the class to write a question for one thing they didn't understand of a lesson or exercise. Check as above
- ask random selections of students what was easy and what was hard in a lesson or exercise, and why they thought it was so.
If there are problems with speed or content, try one or more of the following;
- repeat the instructions
- restate, emphasizing key points
- slow the rate of presentation
- use shorter units of explanation
- allow students more time to process, organize and structure a response
- limit the amount of material
Encourage and reward students' seeking help and clarification
Be prepared to consider that what appears to be inattention or noncompliance may be incomprehension, and that a history of it may have led a student to adopt maladaptive behaviors
Limit the amount of new vocabulary presented at any one time
Provide visual cues and concrete materials to assist learning and remembering. Use for illustration, emphasis and development of ideas.
Use gesture and/or action (your own and theirs) to enhance the meaning of verbal material. Body movement enhances learning in some students.
Encourage and use a variety of memory strategies, such as mnemonics, charts and visuals, rehearsal, reward schedules for incremental increases in performance
Avoid sarcasm, ambiguity, and explain and restate metaphorical language. Be aware that abstract ideas and language may be problematic, and restate.
Use direct rather than indirect instructions, e.g. “stop talking” rather than “I didn't hear Warren because some people were talking.”
Evaluate learning styles, and be prepared to use a variety of strategies, e.g. some students may respond better to a story told than a story read, or visual rather than auditory cues, such as a chart of ideas with arrows versus a mnemonic.
Table 3: Modifying classroom work to help students with language disorders
Some of these ideas are 'good' teaching practices, some for whole class consumption and some are specific to students with language disorders. Much is also identical with sound advice for classrooms or other environments involving students from non-English speaking backgrounds.
Making things explicit
• Provide clear written instructions for assignments and projects
• Be direct and explicit re classroom rules. Don't enforce with sarcasm
• Explain the purpose of activities - some will not correctly infer them - and present new tasks in small steps
• Provide a list of vocabulary for a new topic and check students' understanding. Personal dictionaries with topical vocabulary can be useful for a student who can't retain material
• Emphasize information that it is important to learn
• Explicitly teach study skills for the subject concerned (it is more effective when tied to the content being studied).
• Explicitly teach note taking and time management, and use organizational systems with the whole class e.g. diaries, buddy systems, keeping lists of subject requirements in lockers, communication books between home and school, etc.
• Provide models; good essays/assignments etc., good strategies used (make them real ones)
• Write more on the board; this effectively slows presentation, allows time to process and reinforce information, and it is there for longer
Ensure students complete tasks without experiencing failure
• Teach students with difficulties to compile lists of significant facts, details or information, and order them according to headings.
• Use memory strategies (such as cards with key words) for learning these.
• Students with language disorders often have difficulty with reading and writing.
• It may be desirable to negotiate with them other ways of collecting and presenting information; e.g. tape recording
• Encourage peer group contact and acceptance. Peer Assistance one to one, when carefully planned, can be helpful, as can making a whole class project out of getting everyone through the tasks, using positive rewards
• Provide a private negotiation time with the student
• Negotiate with the student the amount of work appropriate for them
• Set untimed tests and exams.
How to spot students with language disorders
It is clear from the discussion so far that language disorder may not look like language disorder in the first instance. Communication is an active, interactive process, and a history of poor verbal skills can lead to an adolescent who is frustrated, unsuccessful, unhappy and unpopular. Social skills are inseparable from verbal skills. It is very important for high school students to be popular with their peer group, and to do so they need to be good at jokes, verbal banter, teasing, chatting up, verbal conflict, self-justifications, excuses and a variety of other complex verbal comprehension and expressive language skills. When they are not good at these things, they are at risk of developing social and emotional problems.
There seems to be two broad groups of students with language disorder in high school, one where language was always delayed and where there is likely to be a history of speech pathology involvement. The other group appear to develop early language reasonably well, but have problems with their oral language system that are not uncovered until forced by the higher level demands of school and literacy.
Table 1: Signs of language disorder in high school students
Problems with speaking and listening
• seems unable to follow verbal instructions
• reluctant to speak
• talkative, but talk contains little real substance
• tells stories badly
• more grammatical errors than peers
• stereotypes - clichés and overuse of certain words and phrases. May use a lot of slang and swear words - vernacular language
• problems explaining the whys and wherefores of things - can't put the complex grammar together
• only deal well with concrete and here-and-now matters. Abstract language and ideas are very problematic
• taking a long time to respond; problems processing the information
• shows word finding difficulties; uses lots of 'ums' searching for words, lots of fillers e.g. 'you know', 'it’s the, oh the, that, um', and non-specific words, e.g. 'thing', 'that', 'stuff'.
• doesn't follow jokes, puns, sarcasm, metaphors. Takes ambiguous language seriously
• says the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong tone of voice; can't hold a conversation following normal expectations
• doesn't pick up non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions or gestures - doesn't know when people want to end a conversation or doesn't recognize the emotional content of people's talk.
Problems with school work
• can't complete homework
• participation in class discussion is badly handled or non-existent
• has trouble gaining information from class lectures and from books
• following the rules of the classroom is inconsistent or does not understand them or the need to follow them
• poor at tests
• can't explain what the problem is, or give reasons and excuses for failure or behavior
• has trouble with the school routines - can't remember the timetable, loses the rooms, can't use a diary well. Poor at working independently
• concentration and attention appear poor
Behavioral Problems
• poor self-esteem
• problems making and maintaining friendships
• lost motivation, cumulative sense of failure
• depression, anger, frustration, withdrawal, aggression
• reluctance to participate, including in remedial work
• inappropriate coping mechanisms, e.g. bullying, clowning, copying (cheating), delinquency and truancy
Sources: McKinley & Larson, 90; NSW Dept. School Ed, 89; Bashir, 89; Buttrill et al, 89.
Teacher Tips:
Table 2: Modifying Teacher Talk to assist students with language disorders
"School has been called a verbal game, and those who know the rules and play the game can succeed" (Bashir, 89). Students in high school have been estimated to spend "75-90% of their day receiving information in the form of lectures, discussions, AV activities and student reports” (Brent, Gough and Robinson, 90). Teachers can make this more successful for students with language disorders by use of the following strategies:
Request feedback: (this can be very illuminating, and may be done routinely of all students; the following are examples of ways to do it),
- ask students if they can follow the content and the speed with which it is being presented.
- ask the class to write down (anonymously) what they thought the point was of a lesson, and hand it in.
Check for common misunderstandings and give feed- back at the next lesson
- ask the class to write a question for one thing they didn't understand of a lesson or exercise. Check as above
- ask random selections of students what was easy and what was hard in a lesson or exercise, and why they thought it was so.
If there are problems with speed or content, try one or more of the following;
- repeat the instructions
- restate, emphasizing key points
- slow the rate of presentation
- use shorter units of explanation
- allow students more time to process, organize and structure a response
- limit the amount of material
Encourage and reward students' seeking help and clarification
Be prepared to consider that what appears to be inattention or noncompliance may be incomprehension, and that a history of it may have led a student to adopt maladaptive behaviors
Limit the amount of new vocabulary presented at any one time
Provide visual cues and concrete materials to assist learning and remembering. Use for illustration, emphasis and development of ideas.
Use gesture and/or action (your own and theirs) to enhance the meaning of verbal material. Body movement enhances learning in some students.
Encourage and use a variety of memory strategies, such as mnemonics, charts and visuals, rehearsal, reward schedules for incremental increases in performance
Avoid sarcasm, ambiguity, and explain and restate metaphorical language. Be aware that abstract ideas and language may be problematic, and restate.
Use direct rather than indirect instructions, e.g. “stop talking” rather than “I didn't hear Warren because some people were talking.”
Evaluate learning styles, and be prepared to use a variety of strategies, e.g. some students may respond better to a story told than a story read, or visual rather than auditory cues, such as a chart of ideas with arrows versus a mnemonic.
Table 3: Modifying classroom work to help students with language disorders
Some of these ideas are 'good' teaching practices, some for whole class consumption and some are specific to students with language disorders. Much is also identical with sound advice for classrooms or other environments involving students from non-English speaking backgrounds.
Making things explicit
• Provide clear written instructions for assignments and projects
• Be direct and explicit re classroom rules. Don't enforce with sarcasm
• Explain the purpose of activities - some will not correctly infer them - and present new tasks in small steps
• Provide a list of vocabulary for a new topic and check students' understanding. Personal dictionaries with topical vocabulary can be useful for a student who can't retain material
• Emphasize information that it is important to learn
• Explicitly teach study skills for the subject concerned (it is more effective when tied to the content being studied).
• Explicitly teach note taking and time management, and use organizational systems with the whole class e.g. diaries, buddy systems, keeping lists of subject requirements in lockers, communication books between home and school, etc.
• Provide models; good essays/assignments etc., good strategies used (make them real ones)
• Write more on the board; this effectively slows presentation, allows time to process and reinforce information, and it is there for longer
Ensure students complete tasks without experiencing failure
• Teach students with difficulties to compile lists of significant facts, details or information, and order them according to headings.
• Use memory strategies (such as cards with key words) for learning these.
• Students with language disorders often have difficulty with reading and writing.
• It may be desirable to negotiate with them other ways of collecting and presenting information; e.g. tape recording
• Encourage peer group contact and acceptance. Peer Assistance one to one, when carefully planned, can be helpful, as can making a whole class project out of getting everyone through the tasks, using positive rewards
• Provide a private negotiation time with the student
• Negotiate with the student the amount of work appropriate for them
• Set untimed tests and exams.