Robert

Robert says that he talks:

“A bit calmly and like making sentence of like different language and erm and feeling erm more erm patient as erm always.”

After successfully requesting clarification for the word communicating, he then says that he:

“like a bit of chatting with erm I like to have a chat with and sometimes I like chatting with friends and I always chat with the tutors or the staff really. Give them a bit of chat. Makes me feel more comfortable to talk to.”

You may have made notes about Robert’s language in relation to the length and complexity of his utterances. Research shows that utterance or sentence length continues to increase during childhood, adolescence and early adulthood (Nippold 2016; Bernman and Verhoeven, 2002; Nippold et al., 2005).

Robert’s ideas are sometimes a little difficult to follow. Research has measured this in terms of cohesion. Cohesion across utterances and sentences increases with age and linking between utterances and sentences becomes more sophisticated (Nippold, 2016).

The use of adverbial conjuncts such as ‘therefore’ and ‘consequently’ increases during adolescence in response to their common occurrence in academic formats such as textbook, essay and lecture (Nippold, 2016). Adverbial conjuncts such as ‘anyway’ and ‘apparently’ are also used in conversations.

Intrasential growth is also improved by lexical development, which impacts on ‘flow’, limiting redundant information and maximising interest. The impact on written sentences is improved by using synonyms which increase variety and by using closely associated words (Nippold, 2016). Use of both of these cohesive devices has been found to increase with age during adolescence.

Robert sometimes pauses in his answers. This could be due to a variety of reasons, including speed of word retrieval. In adolescence, increasing connections between words improves storage and retrieval of words and thus word finding skills (Nippold, 2007; German 1990). It is thought that strategies such as categorical organisation, categorical cuing and attention to visual cues are associated with better word finding skills (Nippold, 2016). You may have also notes pausing within words and general prosody (use of rhythm, stress and intonation during speech).

In terms of developing targets for expressive language skills, assessment would be important. This may cover further informal language assessment and/or use of standardised language assessments (see Paul, Norbury and Gosse, 2018, for further guidance).

Assessments should ideally be designed to consider the effect of task demands by variation in: the amount of information to be processed; the abstract complexity of material; and time pressures (Montgomery and Levine, 1995). Adolescent language assessment should incorporate three dimensions (Damico, 1993):

1. Authenticity. Assessment must observe, describe and detail ways in which language behaviour varies as a function of different communicative contexts.

2. Functionality. Measure communicative success in transmitting a message effectively, fluently and appropriately.

3. Descriptiveness. Relate any difficulties to extrinsic and intrinsic factors, such as environmental and cultural variables contrasted with linguistic deficiencies.

You may have noted early initial ideas about targets in relation to:

• Practicing giving instructions, eg write a set of instructions and then try to follow them exactly, where does it break down? What other information do you need? Encourage Robert to identify his own errors / omissions and think about how to correct them, which is difficult to do in a real-time conversation.

• Developing functional vocabulary related to Robert’s academic and personal interests: What is the specific vocabulary Robert will need to talk about this topic? Are there any words he doesn’t know? How could you find them out?

• Building utterance complexity by working on specific targets such as connectives, eg because, although, and, then, so.

• Working on grammatical skills using the shape coding approach. Shape coding uses a combination of shapes, colours, and arrows to code phrases, parts of speech, and words and word endings (morphology) (Ebbels and Spencer, 2018). Ebbels (2014) provides an excellent overview of grammatical interventions for children in general, including some reference to intervention for adolescents.

• A ‘thinking together’ approach to developing language and problem-solving skills could be adapted for Robert. Much of this research is based in late primary school, but principles could be adapted and applied to language support. See the following website for further details: thinkingtogether.educ.cam.ac.uk.

We referenced the following sources in our feedback and you may wish to follow some of these up with additional reading:

Berman, R. A., and Verhoeven, L. (2002). Cross-linguistic perspectives on the development of text-production abilities: Speech and writing. Written Language and Literacy, 5(1), 1-43

Damico, J. S. (1993). Language assessment in adolescents addressing critical issues. Language, speech, and hearing services in schools, 24(1), 29-35.

Ebbels, S. and Spencer, S. (2018). Intervention for grammar for adolescents with Developmental Language Disorder. In Spencer, S. (eds) Supporting adolescents with language disorders. Guildford: J&R Press.

Ebbels, S. (2014). Effectiveness of intervention for grammar in school-aged children with primary language impairments: A review of the evidence. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 30(1), 7-40.

Larson, V. L., and McKinley, N. L. (2003). Communication solutions for older students: Assessment and intervention strategies. Thinking Pub.

Paul, R., Norbury, C. and Gosse, C. (2018). Language disorders from infancy through adolescence: Listening, speaking, reading, writing, and communicating. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Nippold, M.A. (2016). Later language development: School-aged children, adolescents, and young adults - Fourth edition. Texas: Pro-ed.

Montgomery, J. W., and Levine, M. D. (1995). Developmental language impairments: their transactions with other neurodevelopmental factors during the adolescent years. In Seminars in speech and language, 16: 1, p. 1.

Scott, C. M. (2014). One size does not fit all: Improving clinical practice in older children and adolescents with language and learning disorders. Language, speech, and hearing services in schools, 45(2), 145-152.

Understanding questions is complex. You may have considered steps involving areas such as:

• attention

• listening

• remembering

• linking what you hear to your existing knowledge

• understanding the meaning of vocabulary

• using your knowledge of syntax/grammar to understand the utterance/question

• the fast speed at which we do all of this

• knowing when we have not understood and being able to guess, make an inference or to say we’ve not understood and ask for clarification.

There are many strategies that we can all use to support young peoples’ understanding of language. These may seem straightforward but in practice can be difficult to implement. People may need feedback and examples on how to do use communication supportive strategies.

Strategies include:

• Pausing: instead of going straight on to the next phrase or sentence, wait a little to give your listener the chance to process the information you have just given, or to let you know that they haven’t understood you.

• Slowing pace: presenting information too quickly might make it difficult for your listener to follow what you are saying. Instead, speak a little more slowly, to give your listener time to hear, process and understand what you say. This extra time may be all your listener needs to be able to keep up with you.

• Reducing complexities of language: keep your language simple. Brief, simple sentences make it easier for your listener to understand the content. For example, instead of using complicated words such as ‘communicate’, use terms like ‘talk and listen’. Instead of talking about ‘outcomes’, talk about ‘what we’ll be able to do’.

• Using visual support: there are many different ways in which we learn. In order to help your listener to understand, you could use visual materials. For example, instead of just saying ‘we’ll finish this activity at 2 o’clock, then it’s PE’, draw a clock showing ‘2 o’clock’ and a football. Instead of just saying ‘calendar’, show a calendar.

• Repetition: if your listener has difficulty in maintaining attention or in following what you say, don’t just say it once and expect them to take everything on board. Repeat what you’ve said - give them more than one chance to hear you.

• Rephrasing: try using different ways to say the same thing. Your listener might not understand some of the words you use, so say it in a different way and see if they understand it this way. For example, if your listener doesn’t seem to understand ‘how did that make you feel?’, try ‘what do you think when that happened?’

• Checking the person’s understanding: it’s not always easy to tell if somebody has understood you. They may look like they understand even if they haven’t. It’s worth asking if they’ve understood-although they may not want to admit that they haven’t! To check this, you could ask a related question: ask them to explain back to you (or to somebody else) what you want them to do, ask if they can give you an example of what you’ve said, or check if they can tell you what materials they need to do the task you’ve just set.

• Using vocabulary the person knows: if you’re not sure that somebody will understand the question ‘what’s your communication like?’, ask ‘what’s your talking like?’ You can then explore this in more depth with further questions. If someone has been working on particular target words in school, use these.

• Not using redundant language: keep what you say simple. If your listener finds understanding difficult, then make it easier for them by only saying the things they need to hear. Don’t say ‘now, what we’re going to do next is, because it’s such a lovely day, and you’ve been working really hard, is we’re going to finish a few minutes early and then I thought it would be nice if we could play a quick game to finish with. What do you think?’ Instead, say ‘You’ve done some really hard work. Let’s finish now and play a game.’

• Explaining new words and more unusual words to the person before using them: when you introduce new words, it’s worth spending some time explaining them and making sure that the listener understands them. That way, when you start to use them, they have a much better chance of understanding what you say. If you’re starting a new topic with lots of new words in, spend some time going through them, and think about giving your listener a printed sheet with the words and their meanings on (perhaps using symbols to support understanding).

• Encouraging the person to monitor their own comprehension: it’s important to build a relationship where your listener can feel comfortable letting you know when they haven’t understood something. Encourage them to tell you if they have or haven’t understood. For example, once you set a class going with a new activity, spend a minute with one pupil checking that they have understood and reassuring them that it’s ok to ask for help.