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 Speech disorder: difficulty pronouncing sounds and voice quality (hoarse voice) or fluency problems such as stuttering, sometimes associated with cleft palate or lip where the person has a split in the upper part of the oral cavity or the upper lip Language disorder: difficulty receiving, understanding, and formulating ideas and information Receptive disorder: difficulty receiving or understanding information Expressive: difficulty formulating ideas and information

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

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. Semantics: language meaning; the meaning of individual words as well as the meaning that is produced by a combination of words. Categories include objects in general, actions in general, and relations between objects and relations between events Students with semantic problems may use or understand a limited number of words. May be in specific areas, such as adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, or pronouns. Dysnomia: difficulty in retrieving or recalling specific words Lack of understanding of how context can change the meaning of words Understanding of idioms Linguistic concepts such as before/after, if/then, many, some, few Misuse of transition words

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. Pragmatics: use of language in communication; may include verbal, vocal, or motoric expression. Rules that govern the use of language in social contexts to convey a variety of intentions such as requesting, asserting, or questioning. Sometimes referred to as communicative competence; may be least likely to be identified as an area of instruction or to be includes as part of the formal school curriculum. Problems include inability to understand indirect requests (Isn’t it time to go to bed now?), determining when the listener doesn’t understand, entering conversations in a socially-unacceptable manner, monopolizing conversation, inappropriate facial expressions, difficulty staying on topic. Figure 9.2: Pragmatic skills for communication

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 Apraxia of speech Substitutions Omissions Additions Distortions Apraxia of speech Articulation is a speaker’s production of individual or sequenced sounds Substitutions: /d/ for /th/ - doze for those, /t/ for /k/ tat for cat or /w/ for /r/ wabbit for rabbit Omissions: leaves a phoneme out of a word (boo for blue, cool for school) Additions: place a vowel between 2 consonants (tree into tahree) Distortions: sound of the phoneme is distorted - usually called lisps (/s/, /z/, /sh/, and /ch/ are mispronounced Apraxia of speech - problems with the voluntary purposeful movements of speech often caused by stroke, head injury or tumor (/b/ for /p/ or /g/ for /k/

Voice Disorders Pitch Duration Intensity Resonance Hyponasality Hypernasality Pitch: affected by the tension and size of the vocal folds -men have lower pitch Duration: length of time any speech sound requires Intensity: Loudness and softness Resonance: quality of someone’s voice - the tone coming from vocal folds Hyponasality sound as if they have a cold or holding their nose Hypernasality: air is allowed to pass through the nasal cavity oon sounds other than /m/, /n/ and /ng/

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 Supportive: Teacher and speech language pathologist plan together a unit and how to support student, pathologist works individually with student to preteach words Complementary: speech pathologist takes notes while teacher teaches Consultation: speech pathologist works with teacher to adapt text

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 A means for selecting the symbols 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