Language Facilitation and Expansion Techniques Flashcards
general tips
- respond to all bids for attention and connection, and all forms of communication
- take into consideration sensory needs
- don’t misinterpret behaviors as intentional (e.g. “stubborn”, “bad”, etc.)
- provide choices
focus on child’s interests and preferences
gradually expand to facilitate social interactions
be a careful observer
- regulation vs. dysregulation
- attention and engagement
model and provide cues for imitation
- tell me, say, you try/your turn
- model again if they don’t imitate
language targets should serve a purpose beyond just requesting
- pragmatics: words, phrases that help the child establish and maintain JA
- consider typical developmental sequence of word classes
consider function as well as form when you’re choosing targets
- early developing consonants
- shorter words
- easy to depict, demonstrate visualize
3 ingredients for teaching first words
- joint engagement
- noun
- gesture
joint engagement
- follow the child’s lead by sharing interest in the objects they are looking at, interacting with, or communicating about
- this connects the language input to the child’s focus of attention
- we know that language either directly related to the child’s focus or in response to their communication prompts their language development
noun
- label the objects the child is interested in
- since we know that the children’s 1st words are most often names for things, modeling nouns support their early vocabulary
- saying nouns by themselves or in simple statements that label or describe the object makes them easy to learn
gesture
- pair nouns with a gesture
- most of the nouns in caregiver input are often actually quite ambiguous
- by holding up, pointing to, or giving an object while labeling it, we can make the meaning of our words really clear
scenario 1: Margo opens the door of a piggy bank toy. Her mother holds up a cion, and says, “Here’s a coin!”
joint engagement = X
noun = yes
gesture = yes
- while mother’s language input was rich and clear, noticing what her child was specifically attending to would make her input more relevant
- we could say, “I love that you held up the coin for her while you labeled it, so it was really clear what you were referring to. In this moment though, she seems to be most interested in opening and closing the door. You could try pointing to it and labeling ‘door’ for her.”
scenario 2: Javier reaches for his cup that’s on the counter. His father hands it to him and says, “Here you go.”
joint engagement = yes
noun = X
gesture = yes
- while his father’s language matches his child’s direct focus, this would be a great opportunity to teach an object label
- we could say, “Great job responding to his communication! This could be a nice moment to say, ‘juice’ as you give him the cup. That way he’s learning a word he can use to request it next time.”
scenario 3: Jin is reading a book with his mother. He touches a picture of a hammer, and his mother points and says, “hammer.”
joint engagement = yes
noun = yes
gesture = yes
- his mother created a high-quality language-learning moment for her son
- we could say, “That was such a powerful teaching moment! He showed you he was interested in the hammer by touching it, and you pointed to the picture and labeled if for him to give the name.”
self-talk
- using simple child-friendly language to talk about what you are doing
- talk about what you are seeing, touching, feeling, smelling, and hearing
parallel talk
- using simple child-friendly language to talk about what the child is doing
- talk about what the child is seeing, touching, feeling, smelling, and hearing
expansion
restate the child’s utterance to make it a complete statement
extension
- restate the child’s utterance to make it a complete statement + add related details
- use stress and intonation to make additions salient
expansions and extensions
- language in your models should be at child’s current linguistic/cognitive level
- model without expectations
“toy talk”: parent-implemented
- respond to the child’s interests in play
- talk about the toys
- gives the object its name
“toy talk”: use nouns instead of pronouns
- subject and verbs are separated
- no contractions (learned as 1 unit vs. 2 morphemes)
- makes learning verb tense and agreement easier
recasting
when a communication partner repeats the child’s statement with the correct grammatically structure and adds information to expand the child’s original statement
how should you recast?
- focused recasts are more effective than broad recasts
- child: “I see dog.”
- parent: “You see 2 dogs!”
focus stimulation approach
- concentrated reps of specific language targets (aka: auditory bombardment)
- manipulate the input
- place additional stress on the target
- put the target at the beginning or end of carrier phrase
purpose of focus stimulation approach
- the authors suggest that it helped “consolidate the child’s internal representation” of the morpheme
- doing the bombardment first didn’t seem to offer any advantage over not doing it at all, based on a comparison with equivalent treatment groups from the authors’ previous work
expectant delay/verbal routines
- aka: fill-in-the-blank, cloze sentence
- repetitive phrases (books, songs)
- rising intonation
- pause
- expectant look at child
increasing non-speaking clients’ participation during joint storybook reading
create storyboard that provide opportunity for non-speaking clients to actively participate
- labels
- comments
- questions
communication temptations
- provide opportunity for child to request
- in sight but out of reach
- motivating, interesting items that child has labeled before
- scenarios lends themselves to use of other strategies
- need to consider your rapport, child’s temperament; particularly, if you’re withholding all or part of a toy, object the child wants
