• Presented by Speech and Language

Development Australia (SALDA) student support services (SSS) team.

• Student support services team- located in Townsville and Brisbane.

• Develop an understanding of language and

speech development. • Understand the difference between language

and speech sound development. • Develop strategies to help identify language and

speech difficulties in the classroom. • Develop strategies to support students with

speech and language difficulties.

• A model used to provide a visual reference to

the six key areas that play an important part in a child’s overall development. This model includes:

o Speech and Language o Cognition o Sensory o Motor o Perception o Social/Emotional skills

• Language can be separated into three separate

but overlapping components. • These include: form, content & use

• Semantics refers to vocabulary or the aspect of

our language which holds meaning. • When children develop their vocabulary, they

will store words based on the category in which they belong or function.

• The number of semantic connections a child makes will overall strengthen their vocabulary.

Syntax: • Syntax refers to the rule system governing the

order and combination of words that are used to form sentences.

• The rules of syntax help change the meaning of our language.

Morphology • Refers to the rule system that governs the

structure of words and the construction of word forms.

• A morpheme is the smallest unit or segment of language that conveys meaning.

Phonology • Refers to the sound components of a language. • Phonology includes the individual sound units

used in a language and the rules by which they are combined and recombined to create larger language units (words).

• The use of language refers to the reasons and purpose for which we communicate.

• Strong social language will enable students to use their language for different reasons such as making comments, requests, asking questions and storytelling.

• It will also allow a student to know how to change their language based on the listener or situation.

• Students with language disorder may present with difficulties in one or all aspects of language including form, function and use.

• It is also possible for students to present with difficulties in only one area and this may result in a more specific speech or pragmatic language disorder.

• Within the early years of schooling children will

begin to develop language through imitation, association and reinforcement.

• When learning a new word, a child will require repeated expose to the word, before they are then able to independently use the word for themselves.

• The rate of language acquisition will be different for all children.

• Repeated exposure to language across contexts and with different communication partners will be essential in developing communication skills within the early years.

By 4-5 years of age children should display the following language skills. Attention, Listening and Understanding: • Understand longer 2-3 stage instructions. • Begin to understand more complicated concepts

used to represent, order: ‘first’, ‘last’ and position: ‘above’ and ‘between’.

• Begin to understand ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions.

Vocabulary: • Vocabulary reaches approximately 1500 words. • Begin to describe the meaning of simple words

or ask what a new word means. • Understand a range of words used to describe

the idea of time, shape, texture, size and know in which context to use them.

Story Telling & Narratives: • Stories are a series of listed events that are often

out of order. • Begin to add problems to their own stories. • Begin to use longer and more complicated

sentences in their stories.

Sentence Building & Grammar: • Produce sentences containing 4-5 words. • Use sentences that are well formed, longer and

have more detail. • Begin to join phrases with words such as ‘if’,

‘because’ and ‘so’.

Social Interactions: • Choose their own friends and play mates. • Start conversations with other people and join in

on group discussions. • May use their language to ask, negotiate, give

opinions and discuss feelings.

By 6-7 years of age children should display the following language skills. Attention and Listening: • Understand the key points they need to focus on

in order to answer a question or follow an instruction.

• Understand complex 2 to 3-part instructions. • Understand a range of complex concepts.

Vocabulary: • Learn that the same word can mean two things,

such as 'orange' the fruit and 'orange' the colour. • Learn that different words can mean the same

thing such as ‘minus’ and ‘take away’. • Begin to use new words in more specific and

appropriate ways.

Storytelling & Narrative: • Tell stories with important key components

which include setting the scene, providing a story plot and a sequence of events.

• Begin to make predictions about what will happen next in a story.

Sentence Building & Grammar: • Use more complicated grammar including

different ways to join phrases to help explain or justify an event.

• Use a range of descriptive words, including adjectives and adverbs in sentences.

• Ask questions to find out specific information.

Social Interactions: • Understand feelings and descriptive words like

'carefully', 'slowly' and 'clever'. • Use language they hear from other people and

begin to be aware of peer language. • Take turns to talk, listen and respond in two-way

conversations in a range of social situations.

Early educators, parents and all staff working with students in schools play an important role in the identification of language disorder. When working with students consider the following markers to help identify the signs of speech and language difficulties.

Receptive Language • Difficulty understanding questions. • Reduced understanding of common concepts &

vocabulary. • Difficulty following 2-3 stage instructions.

Expressive Language • Difficulty forming complete sentences. • Incorrect use of grammar. • Reduced vocabulary.

Social Skills • Play differently to friends. • Find it difficult to initiate and engage in

conversation.

• In speech pathology the terms, speech and language are very different

• Speech includes a mechanical process which involves co-ordination of the brain, nerves, muscles and breathing to produce sounds.

• When sound units are combined they create language units (words).

• When sounds are produced incorrectly or are substituted by different sounds it can affect the clarity of speech as well as the meaning conveyed to a listener.

• The model shown provides a clear visual to help see the overlap between phonology and the part it plays in both language and speech production.

• A child’s acquisition of speech involves the perception and production of consonants, vowels, consonant clusters, tones, prosody and the phonological rules of language.

• Speech development is a gradual process with children acquiring sounds at different ages.

• In total there are 28 consonant sounds and 24 vowel sounds within the English language.

• Speech is produced by precisely coordinated muscle actions in the head, neck, chest and abdomen. The lips, tongue, teeth, nose and palate all play an important role in speech production.

• Speech sounds can be described according to three criteria: place, manner and voicing. Place:

o This refers to where in the vocal tract the sound is made. For example, sounds such as ‘p /b’ are made through contact of the lips.

Manner: o Manner refers to how sounds are made

based on the movement of air through the vocal tract.

o Some sounds are produced on a long airstream such as ‘s’ and ‘f’ sounds, whereas some can be made on a short airstream, for example, ‘b/p’ sounds.

Voicing: o Many consonant sounds come in pairs –

meaning that the place and manner is the same for both sounds however one sound is voiced and one is voiceless.

o A sound can be identified as voiced or voiceless depending on the vibration produced in the vocal tract.

• In speech pathology sounds are represented by symbols.

• These symbols form the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

• Some common speech sounds and their associated symbols have been listed below:

o - ‘sh’ sound o - as in ‘measure’. o - ‘ch’ sound o - ‘j’ sound o - as in ‘the’ o - as in ‘thing’

• Approximately 3 to 10% of primary school students will have difficulty producing speech.

• There a number of known developmental and acquired causes of speech sound disorders.

• The known causes of speech disorders include motor or neurological difficulty, structural difficulty or sensory perceptual difficulty.

• There are no known causes for articulation and phonological speech sound disorders.

• Many children can present with an isolated speech disorder; however they may often occur with a language disorder or biomedical condition (e.g., cerebral palsy, autism).

• Articulation disorders occur when a child has difficulty producing one or more specific speech sounds.

• They may make errors in place, manner or voicing to produce distorted sounds or substitutions.

• One of the most common articulation errors is a lisp.

• The most common type of lisp is an inter-dental lisp which occurs where a “s” or “z” sound is produced with the tongue between the teeth.

• An interdental lisp is considered to be developmental in nature and therefore may resolve with time.

• An interdental lisp is considered delayed if the error continues to persist past 5 years.

• A lateral lisp is considered an atypical

articulation error and can be recognised due to the presence of “slushy” sounding “s” or “z” sounds.

• During a lateral lisp airflow is directed over the sides of the tongue.

• A lateral lisp is considered an atypical articulation error.

• Phonological errors occur when children do not use the right sounds in the right places in words.

• These errors have less to do with how the sounds are produced but are instead relate to a child’s linguistic development.

• Many children can produce target sounds in isolation but struggle to use those sounds correctly in words or sentences.

• Most children will demonstrate patterns of phonological errors as part of typical development.

• They may be isolated to only one sound or may affect a range of sound targets.

• For some children, phonological errors may persist longer than expected and therefore they may present with a phonological delay.

• Case Example: Max is a young boy who presents with difficulties producing words which include the ‘k’ sound. For example, Max will produce the word ‘cap’ as ‘tap’.

• As mentioned earlier sounds hold meaning when they are combined and placed together.

• When learning new words children will begin to store words as combinations of sounds. For example, ‘cap’ will be stored as ‘c-a-p’.

• For children with phonological errors the breakdown occurs at the point in which they begin to store the sound patterns of words.

• In Max’s case, words which include a ‘k’ sound have been incorrectly stored as words with a ‘t’ sound.

• These errors can therefore be more easily understood as language-based errors as the way in which the words are stored in Max’s vocabulary ‘filling system’ are incorrect.

• It is important to note that children can have a combination of phonological errors and articulation errors.

• If Max had difficulty producing the ‘k’ sound in isolation and struggled to place his tongue in the accurate position to say the sound then it may be likely that he has both articulation and phonological errors.

• It is important that children are referred to a speech pathologist to determine the nature and severity of their speech difficulties.

• Speech occurs when messages are sent from the brain to the mouth. These messages tell our muscles how and when to move to make sounds.

• For a child with CAS the messages sent from the brain to the muscle do not occur correctly and therefore, they will often present with difficulty coordinating the movements necessary to say words.

• Children with CAS may present with the following features:

o ‘groping’ or ‘trial and error’ behaviours. o difficulty producing longer words. o difficulty copying words and sounds.

• Children with CAS present with highly unintelligible speech and often their progress in speech therapy will be slow.

• Dysarthria is another rare speech sound disorder caused by neurological damage that affects the muscles involved in speaking.

• Muscles may be paralysed, weak or poorly co-ordinated.

• Some children may develop a speech sound or be able to combine certain sounds before the expected age, while others may be slightly slower, and this is ok within reason.

• As a general rule; o By 3yrs a student’s speech should be

50% intelligible (able to be understood) by unfamiliar adults.

o By 4-5 years speech should be understood most of the time by unfamiliar people.

Language Support Strategies:

Modify instructions • Within the classroom it is important that

students are provided questions that match their current level of understanding.

• Factors to consider when providing instructions include:

o Gain attention. o Provide information in short chunks

which are explicit and concise. o Use the intonation and volume in your

voice to emphasis key words. o Use visual aids to support

comprehension.

Scaffold questions • Scaffold higher level questions to represent

more closed or concrete questions which are shorter or simpler.

• Introduce visual organisation strategies such as sentence starters or cloze activities.

• Provide enough processing time.

Pre-teach vocabulary • Pre-teaching involves targeting a small number

of curriculum vocabulary or concepts. • Simple ways to review vocabulary in the

classroom may involve; o Teaching student friendly definitions. o Using semantic word maps to explore

definitions and word associations.

o Developing peer discussions to explore conceptual meaning.

Model correct language and expand upon students’ responses • Modelling allows students to hear examples of

different language structures in their correct form and context.

• Expansion is also a beneficial strategy which can support students to independently trial more complex sentences.

Increase the use of visual supports • Visual supports enable students to learn,

understand and use language more easily. • Visual supports can be used to support

behaviour management, reinforce structures and routines and promote greater independence.

• Types of visuals supports that can be beneficial for use in the classroom include:

o visual schedules o graphic organisers

Speech Support Strategies:

Avoid drawing attention to a child’s errors by asking them to repeat the correct target. • If a child mispronounces a word do not ask them

to repeat this as this may cause unwanted attention and impact upon a child’s willingness to want to communicate.

• Try modelling the correct word target that the child has attempted.

Give a correct model • Hearing how a word is said correctly can support

a child’s pronunciation of specific words. • Try modelling back what the child has said so

they can hear how certain sounds are pronounced, e.g. If a child says, “where’s my dair?” when they mean to say ‘chair’, you can respond by modelling back “your chair is by the table”.

• Use the volume and intonation in your voice to emphasis the correct sound.

Repeat a child’s communication attempts • Repeat and model a child’s sentences if their

speech is not clear (e.g. child: “dat my deen tar.” adult: “yes, that’s your green car.”).

• By repeating what the child has said you are providing a good language model and are also showing that you have listened to what the child has said.

Provide specific praise • When a child attempts a speech sound or new

words aim to provide specific praise that focuses on the speech sound.

• For example, more specific praise such as “I like the way you made that with a ‘s’ sound” will provide a child with a better understanding of what they are being praised for.

Use visuals to support understanding in conversation • Ask a child to show you what they are talking

about if you don’t understand what they have said.

Further information regarding the content presented in today’s webinar can be found in the following handouts listed below. • SALDA Expressive and Receptive Language • SALDA Typical Speech Sound Development • SALD Helping Children to Say Specific Sounds • SALDA Supporting Students with Language

Disorder in the classroom

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