Unbabbled
Unbabbled
Becky Willson, MS, CCC-SLP: Linking Language Therapy and Academics | Season 6, Episode 2
In this episode, we speak with pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist Becky Wilson, about the link between language disorders and academics and how targeting underlying language skills helps support students learning. Throughout the episode Becky discusses ways reading, math, and all areas of school are interwoven with underlying language skills and ways as a speech-pathologist she targets these skills to develop a child’s overall academic learning.
Becky Willson, MS, CCC-SLP is a speech language pathologist specializing in language and literacy for grades K-12. She has a private practice in Houston, Texas where she has served students with learning differences for the past 23 years. Becky’s prior experience includes classroom teaching in language-based learning disabilities programs at the elementary and middle school levels. Becky recognizes that language is the foundation for literacy, and the cornerstone for learning in all school subjects and she is dedicated to providing high-quality, multi-sensory intervention that produces results. Her goal is to help children and adolescents reach their highest academic potential, and support educators and families.
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Stephanie Landis (00:06):
Hello and welcome to Babbled, a podcast that navigates the world of special education, communication, delays and learning differences. We are your host, Stephanie Landis and Meredith Krummel, and we're certified speech language pathologist who spend our days at the parish school in Houston helping children find their voices and connect with the world around them. Hey, this is Stephanie jumping in really quickly to tell you about our sponsor soccer shots. Houston, the Parish School has been lucky enough to have a group of students participate in soccer shots right here on our campus for the past couple of years, and it has been an amazing way for our students to be a part of a team. Soccer shots began programming in Houston in 2009 with a goal of positively impacting children's lives and supporting their learning of their favorite game soccer. Their program was formed under the guidance of childhood education specialist, professional soccer players, and experienced and licensed soccer coaches. They use a developmentally appropriate curriculum that meets children where they are, and the coaches place an emphasis on character development and skill building. The coaches use words like respect, confidence, and determination in their weekly classes. To learn more about soccer shots, visit their website@www.soccer shots.com/houston. Again, that's www soccer shots.com/houston.
Meredith Krimmel (01:24):
Hey guys, Meredith here to talk to you about one of our sponsors, MI Homes. MI Homes builds quality homes with superior design and some of the best places to live in the greater Houston area. Their commitment to quality, craftsmanship and customer satisfaction ensures you'll have a home built to last contact MI Homes, one of the nation's leading home builders@www.mihomes.com to find your next home.
Stephanie Landis (01:48):
In this episode, we speak with pediatric speech language pathologist, be Wilson about the link between language disorders and academics. Becky specializes in language and literacy for grades kinder through 12th. She has a private practice right here in Houston, Texas where she has served students with learning differences for the past 23 years. Becky recognizes that language is the foundation for literacy and the cornerstone for learning in all school subjects. She spent her career targeting language skills to support student learning. Throughout the episode, Becky discusses ways reading, math and all areas of school are interwoven with underlying language skills and how she targets these skills to improve a child's overall academic learning. Welcome. Today we're talking to speech pathologist Becky Wilson, and we're focusing a little bit more on the ways that language has an impact on areas of academics, and we're really excited about that because it's something we see so commonly here on our campus. So welcome, Becky. We're excited to talk to you. Really happy to be here. So can you tell us just a little bit about your experience as an LP?
Becky Wilson (03:00):
Okay. Well, it's been a long one. I've been in the field for a long time. I just calculated today, I've been practicing for 38 years. I've been in private practice for the last 23 years here in Houston. Started out in the school systems in Florida and I had a very unique start, which kind of started this whole divergence to the academic language. And that was I was LLD teacher team teaching with a special education teacher in a self-contained classroom teaching kids, all subjects similar to the parish school model where I was actually in the classroom, but I was in there all day long and then also had the fortunate experience of doing the upshoot of that program at the middle school level where I was the students' actual language arts teacher for the kids with speech and language impairment. So that's kind of how I started out.
(03:59):
Fast forward Houston, that was in Florida. Fast forward, I started my practice here in 2000 and since that time I've been working with a lot of students who have language-based learning disabilities, a lot of students from the parish school. I still have someone caseload at this time. So it's been a great experience and I just really love working in the academic areas of language because languages is so essential to every aspect of learning in academics and not just in academics, also in the real world. So that's kind of how I got my start. I work in West Houston. I have an office. I also do telepractice primarily for therapy, and I work with students grade K through 12 at the current time. And I've also been doing some contract work with the public schools. So I'm kind of staying in really what kids need to be successful in the classroom.
Stephanie Landis (05:00):
And when you say language-based learning differences, can you explain a little bit about what that means?
Becky Wilson (05:05):
Okay. Well, a speech and language disorder, you have your speech, which is your typical students who can't articulate or pronounce their sounds correctly, and the kids who stutter, they have trouble speaking, but language is kind of more of a hidden disability. And if there is a problem with either understanding language, comprehending language processing language or expressing language, what they put out that is considered a language disorder. And then you also have your other learning disabilities that are language-based, which dyslexia is one of those. It's a language-based learning disability.
Stephanie Landis (05:48):
Do you often see that children with oral language difficulties, this will transition into their writing as well?
Becky Wilson (05:56):
Absolutely. You think about it, if they're having trouble with producing language orally, you tie in that factor of the hand-eye motor coordination and fine motor skills, it's going to fall apart because writing is a very complex process. All the areas of language are used, vocabulary, they have to think about what words to use, what grammar to use, and then they're trying to do this all at the same time, then their spelling might fall apart or they're going to forget their punctuation. So yeah, it is definitely, if there's an oral language issue, it is almost always going to carry over into the written work.
Stephanie Landis (06:38):
I found it really interesting. You said you worked with students even through middle school and high school. I find a lot of people once they hit past maybe second grade even is they tend to switch from like, oh, there's still a language component to it to purely just needing tutoring. Have you found that as well?
Becky Wilson (06:58):
Yeah, it does happen, but I get referrals for kids who've never been evaluated, especially post covid.
(07:07):
A lot of parents just didn't do anything in terms of getting services for their kids during that time. A couple of weeks ago, I just evaluated a 13 year old girl who the parents suspected had dyslexia and sure enough, and now she's finally getting services. But yeah, a lot of times these language issues are very subtle and they account it to, oh, he just has attention problems or he's just not motivated. And that's the thing. There are a lot of indicators that there might be a language problem going on. The other thing is with that people, if there's not an actual speech problem that they can hear, they don't know that there might be a problem with the language production. And if you think about it with a lot of these kids, even the kids with attention issues, they might be fine until they get up to third or fourth grade, but when they get to that point, they're expected to be able to read in order to learn independently.
(08:13):
And if there might be still an issue of reading going on in terms of actually pronouncing the words in the text, their comprehension is going to fall apart. Or let's say they can read perfectly fluently, they don't make a mistake. There's a common misconception that students, if they can pronounce the words in the text, they should be able to comprehend it or understand it. And that's not always the case. A lot of these kids that I work with who are referred to me for reading comprehension, I'll find that they can answer the basic where when questions recalling details, they can do that, but they can't interpret the text. And that is a form of higher level language. And so that's when the higher level language starts to come into play at about third grade. And a lot of these kids, let's say the ones who have never been diagnosed, they just knew there was the parents just knew there was something, they weren't sure what it was. They fall apart when they get to third or fourth grade because they can't do that interpretation piece where they have to make inferences. How do you think this person feels? Well, why did this happen? What do you think is going to happen next? And all those kinds of questions are very common when it comes to having to read text and also any kind of assignments and any kind of those achievement tests like the STAR test are full of those critical thinking questions that are difficult for kids to answer
Stephanie Landis (09:52):
And they hide vocabulary in there. So you need to be able to use the context clues to infer what these new vocabulary words mean.
Becky Wilson (10:00):
Right. And vocabulary is just a huge, huge struggle. I've really been diving into the vocabulary issue because it is so imperative. It is a critical piece to comprehending not only what they're reading in the textbooks, but also on being able to grasp their subject content. You think about the words that some of these kids are getting in their science class like photosynthesis, they're like, what? I don't know what that is. They might be able to memorize it for a test, but they don't actually acquire that vocabulary word.
Stephanie Landis (10:38):
I have a two part question for me here. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between what you would see in academic tutoring versus what you would see in language therapy with a focus on academics and as a parent who maybe has a child in tutoring, at what point would they consider maybe tutoring isn't the right path in a language speech, language pathologist and language therapy would be more beneficial.
Becky Wilson (11:00):
And I've never been a tutor, but it's my understanding of tutoring that they're going to help students with their homework. Now there are other companies out there who work on more than just that and will work with students on executive functioning skills, how to be organized, how to manage our assignments, and that's something different. But in general, a tutor is going to help a student get through their homework, help them do their assignments, help them be organized, that kind of thing. Language therapy is different because for number one, it's going to look at the areas starting with an assessment that are affecting a student the most in terms of why they're struggling to get their homework done and what pieces are lacking, what are they lacking in order to be able to keep up with their peers in the classroom. So there was a psychologist friend who once said that tutoring is putting a bandaid on it.
(12:08):
It's like, let's just get 'em through, let's just get 'em through so they don't fall apart. The goal of therapy is to get those skills that are below where they should be developmentally for the child's age and get them up to where they should be or at least within the range so that they can manage and have some self confidence and learn some strategies so that they can be successful in the classroom. For example, let's say a student in the fourth grade, they're reading on a first grade level, all the tutoring in the world that is only helping them with their homework isn't going to really fix the problem. Does that make sense?
Stephanie Landis (12:48):
Yeah. You got to get those lagging skills and build on those instead of just reteaching the material because there's a reason why the material didn't stick the first time. So if we
Becky Wilson (12:58):
Figure
Stephanie Landis (12:58):
Out the underlying cause, we can support it and then they'll be able to generalize that to all the homework instead of just that current assignment. That makes a lot of sense. For a child who might be struggling in reading who has never been diagnosed with a language delay or disorder and then they're getting into that third or fourth grade year, if they're still continuing to struggle to read, would you suggest maybe a language evaluation would be a good option at that time even though they've never had that diagnosis in their history?
Becky Wilson (13:27):
Absolutely, because the reading process fluent being able to read is completely, there are essentially two pieces. There's the word recognition, which we call reading decoding, and then there's the comprehension piece. And the comprehension piece is all language-based because you have to have that vocabulary knowledge, background knowledge, you have to be able to understand the sentence structure. And a lot of times this complex sentence structure is very difficult for students to understand. You have to have knowledge of the different types of texts. And like I touched on before when I said that critical thinking piece, that verbal reasoning, so all those skills make up kind of one strand. I don't know if you two may be familiar with the Scarborough's reading rope. It is so complicated, the reading process. So you have that comprehension piece which has all these different strands, and then you have the word recognition piece that has all these different strands.
(14:42):
And really the word recognition strand is also a language issue. It's where that, we call it phonological awareness. It's the ability to access the knowledge of and access to the sound system of the language. And a speech pathologist is the one who have the most knowledge of the sound system of the language. So they have to have that piece in order to be able to recognize sight words and to be able to decode a word. And then the language falls in with that too, because once they read a word, they have to attach meaning to that word. I mean, when I was asked the indicators of what a language disorder would be, I would put reading up there at the top of the list. That would be my number one indicator.
Stephanie Landis (15:33):
Yeah, I agree. I keep reading so many studies that have dyslexia and other learning disabilities, so intertwined with early language. And you were speaking about earlier that the speech sound system is that even sometimes if a child is still struggling with the speech sound system that sometimes that can later impact some of their competing and decoding and all of that as well
Becky Wilson (15:59):
And spelling so
Stephanie Landis (15:59):
Intertwined. Yeah, if you're not hearing that there's a and a pee together and producing it, then you're definitely not going to spell it that way,
Becky Wilson (16:09):
Right? Absolutely, absolutely. And it's so complicated when you think about the process of, we don't even think about it. When you have to read a word, you have to be able to recognize the letter symbol. You have to associate a sound with that symbol, you have to do that for each sound, and then you have to blend all those sounds together to pronounce the whole word. And then you tie in an attention difficulty there and it all goes out the window. So a lot of times kids will just guess that what the word is, instead of actually applying word analysis when they read,
Stephanie Landis (16:51):
Sounds like you've been at my house when I've been doing reading homework with my daughter and she reads the first two sounds and then guesses the rest of the word. And I'm like, that's not you made AT in that word. And there's no T in this word. We're just guessing now. But it's common. It's fairly common for kids to be like, oh, and try and pull in the background knowledge and guess instead of fully decoding. Just thinking back to the sound thing, that's how we even just first identified for my daughter. She was having difficulty with some articulation and her teacher was like, well, she's not producing some of these sounds right. And then when she goes to read them and then when she goes to spell them, they're all coming out the way she produces them. And
Becky Wilson (17:38):
Absolutely it
Stephanie Landis (17:39):
All got into a little twirly mess. And luckily with some very great therapy, she was able to get the articulation knocked out quickly, and even just getting her articulation helped her with the spelling and the producing and the reading and boosted that as well. It's crazy how it's all tied in there together. I know all the different pieces of reading the working memory and I mean all of it. It's just a very complicated thing that we all just do. And then until someone struggles and
Becky Wilson (18:09):
Then you're like, oh wow, this
Stephanie Landis (18:10):
Is really complicated.
Becky Wilson (18:12):
We take it for granted.
Stephanie Landis (18:13):
I really love you pointed out in some of that that it translates into other content areas because we focus so much time on just math and reading, but for so many of our students learning science and social studies, that is all comprehension and being able to word recall and it seeps into other areas. Even in math, I'm finding with a lot of the students here that these math problems are getting so tricky and they're adding in their word problems now and they're adding in extra information and the kids are like, I don't know how to decode this sentence. I don't know what the sentence is even asking me. Even if we take the numbers out of it, I don't know what it's even asking.
Becky Wilson (19:02):
And a huge factor with that is the understanding of the math concepts just more than less than how many more, that kind of thing. The kids that struggle with that, they're not going to have a hard time being able to apply that problem, being able to solve that problem if they don't understand those concepts, those basic concepts that are related to how many quantity. And also what comes into play with word problems is the ability to sequence, all right, what do I need to do first? Alright, well first I need to read the story problem, then I need to figure out if there's any words in there. I don't know what they mean and then they have to read it as well. So I mean this just can be very complicated for them. Those concepts are huge.
Stephanie Landis (19:56):
And are those things that you tend to work on in your language therapy with students?
Becky Wilson (20:01):
Yes. Up to about third grade I work on math up to about a third grade level. Beyond that, the computation teaching that is beyond me, but teaching those concepts and problem solving. Absolutely.
Stephanie Landis (20:14):
Yeah. I find when I go in and support in math, I'm like, don't ask me about the actual math, but I'll help you infer and what this word means and if you can figure out if there's any extra information in here and how to sequence it, I can help you sequence what do we need to do first. But don't ask me about long division. I don't.
Becky Wilson (20:34):
And with those word problems, these kids that I work with, they need hands-on.
Stephanie Landis (20:40):
They
Becky Wilson (20:40):
Need little objects so that they can take away and add and just learning those words, they need that hands-on in order to learn what those words mean.
Stephanie Landis (20:54):
I mean you kind of touched on it, but just identifying even what's important and what's not important, kind of what is trying to throw you off on this word problem. And then a lot of times they require perspective taking and word problems as well. I mean obviously in reading, but even in math, you're now trying to solve a math equation by taking the perspective of a character and a math problem and getting all the areas of language
Becky Wilson (21:17):
Right, right.
Stephanie Landis (21:19):
Yeah,
Becky Wilson (21:20):
Interpreting perspectives is very difficult for a lot of my students and with the older ones, I spend so much time working on that.
Stephanie Landis (21:28):
And what areas does that impact other than just figuring out word problems?
Becky Wilson (21:33):
Well that socially for one, knowing how to predict what another person might be thinking based on their facial expression, their nonverbal language. Well, if someone's making that mad angry face or they look all stressed out, well now probably wouldn't be a good time to ask for whatever I want or need. Maybe I should leave 'em alone for a while. Or knowing what would be appropriate to ask, what would be appropriate to say. Then interpreting perspectives ties in using what we call nonverbal language, which is the facial expressions and the gestures and also whatever's in the context objects, the environment, and also being able to determine what that person is thinking, what might they be saying. And then that ties in closely with reading comprehension as well, especially with or primarily with fiction.
Stephanie Landis (22:36):
Yeah, I find so many of our students like reading nonfiction and they like early stories and then they like nonfiction. And I thought about it one day and I was like, as I'm reading more and more complex books, I was like, yeah, even beloved books like Harry Potter, when you look into it so much is like social conflict and underlying emotional things and character, why a character would do this. And there's double agents and there's so much perspective taking that you have to have to follow along the plot line of the story. It makes sense to me is why they're like, well, I don't understand, I don't understand. I don't really care. I don't know what's going on. Reading those texts become more difficult for them, but that's in school what they're asked to do. And then they're asked what's the theme of the story? And if you were this character, what would you do? And they're like, I don't know. I can't put myself in that character shoes to figure out what I would do or what I would do differently or I don't know why they did that.
Becky Wilson (23:41):
And it's hard for these kids to keep all the characters straight.
(23:46):
A lot of 'em struggle with names, just being able to remember the name. And what I find is I think about when I started to read from when I first started to read stories I've been reading since I was four. And constantly I would be able to picture the character in my mind and be able to have a visual image in my mind of these characters and what they're doing. And a lot of times it's really hard for students, especially if they have a language difference to do that they don't form a mental picture about what they read, they they just read the words and a lot of times goes in one ear and out the other because they don't get that mental picture.
Stephanie Landis (24:32):
Do you do any work with students to help them improve that or to get strategies to help them formulate that?
Becky Wilson (24:39):
Absolutely, yeah. I teach kids to use visualization and it's called guided imagery where I actually will do a story with 'em. And they're usually pretty short stories because it can take a long time. It can take an hour to get through a five sentence story where we go through it one sentence at a time and I ask them, okay, well what did you picture in your mind for this sentence? And they tell me and I can tell based on what they're telling me, they pictured whether or not they pictured it, number one. And number two, are they making inferences about what they read? Just as a simple example, if a story said The bunny hopped over to the bush, this is out of a first grade story. And I say, okay, well what color was the bunny? And they'll be like, well, it didn't say
Stephanie Landis (25:30):
What
Becky Wilson (25:30):
Color was the bush? Well, it didn't say. I'm like, well, let's use our background knowledge. What color can bunnies be? They can be white, they can be brown, they can be spotted black and white. It wouldn't make sense if he was picturing it purple, right? Well, what color are bushes? They're green. And it's almost like getting them to a kind of liken it to a paint by number kind of thing where you're filling in the missing information and then actually describing, not just repeating back the sentence, but actually giving a description of what they're picturing in their mind for that sentence. And we go through that and we do that for each sentence. And then I have them retell the whole story in their own words and tell the main idea. And then we go in and we answer those inferential interpretation questions about the passage afterwards.
Stephanie Landis (26:24):
Because even in that example, they didn't explicitly stay the setting it could have, what setting did you picture? Was it a zoo park? You have to infer where they would be, yeah,
Becky Wilson (26:35):
Where is this happening?
Stephanie Landis (26:36):
Other hints later in the story, but it doesn't directly tell you where, but they'll probably later in the past to ask you, where was the bunny?
Becky Wilson (26:45):
Right? And I take 'em through that whole process figuring out, telling me, well, where are they? Well, it didn't say where they were.
Stephanie Landis (26:52):
Well,
Becky Wilson (26:53):
Where would it make sense that a bunny would be hopping over to a bush? It wouldn't make sense if it was in a cage in someone's living room or well, it could be in the forest, right? It could be in the forest that would make the most sense, or it could be in someone's backyard. That would make sense. And just kind of guiding them to being able to make those inferences on their own.
Stephanie Landis (27:18):
Are these the kind of things you recommend to families to do with their children when they're reading at night to help them or helping them with their homework to help them increase this visualization? And is that something you would recommend for families to continue doing at home?
Becky Wilson (27:32):
Well, the process I use is pretty complicated and parents have actually watched me do it and they're like, we're can leave that up to you. I'm just going to ask them. But I do send assignments home for the parents who are able and willing to do it at that level, let's say at a first grade level, it's going to start with being able to actually describe a picture that they can actually see, all right, where is this happening? Alright, what colors do you see? How do you think they feel? So it's tying in that ability to express in detail what they're actually seeing in an actual picture before they can describe what they're picturing in their mind. And that's where the parents really become integral is getting them to practice that. And I have had parents who I've observed and been like, I'm going to try that with them at home, but they kind of need to be at a point where they're pretty accurate with it. Like let's say 80% accurate on doing it with me. And then I could say, you could try this at home with them.
Stephanie Landis (28:37):
Do you have any go-tos for families when they are say, reading with their kids or at home to kind of reinforce language skills to help build those up?
Becky Wilson (28:49):
The biggest piece of that, reading stories with kids is the number one way to increase vocabulary. You can drill kids on vocabulary flashcards all day long, but the research has shown that the best way to improve vocabulary knowledge is through reading books, reading stories, that kind of thing. Always the basic strategies that I give to parents is to, before you read, do those pre-reading strategies activate their background knowledge about the topic, what do you already know about this subject? And then maybe pre-teaching any of the new vocabulary words that they wouldn't understand in that story. And then reading the story, answering questions as you go along. That is a huge piece. And then at the end of the story, kind of doing some review questions with them,
Stephanie Landis (29:43):
Would you recommend doing those same types of activities as your children get older even though they're still struggling with reading? Or would it look a little different for an older child?
Becky Wilson (29:52):
It's going to look a little different for an older child, my students who are reading novels and things like that, and when I'm working with them in my sessions, we're still doing one paragraph. So I kind of tell the parents the best thing to do is to take it one paragraph at a time and talk about that paragraph as you read it, go ahead and read the paragraph. And I recommend doing the alternate reading where the child reads one paragraph and then the adult reads the next one, but stopping at the end of each paragraph and checking for comprehension of what's going on.
Stephanie Landis (30:28):
Yeah, I love that. My son and I read, well, we were alternating parents reading at night, but my son and I are reading a chapter book. I was finding that if it was my night not to read to him and then I'd come in the next night and I'd be so confused and lost about the story and then I couldn't support him if he got confused or whatever. So we've now instituted, we're reading this book together, it's me and you. If I don't do your bedtime routine with you that night, we don't read that, but we read something different. But we do the alternating. He reads a page, I read a page, he reads a page. But I do love that idea of stopping more frequently and talking about sections of the book because a lot of times we'll read a chapter and then we'll kind of review the chapter together.
(31:09):
But I like this idea of stopping a little earlier and kind of checking for understanding more frequently. And we also got the same book as a graphic novel, which just happened to, which was awesome because we were reading and it was a lot going on in our head and it's like a fantasy type. It's the wings of fire. I don't know if you know those, but so we ended up getting the graphic novel. Then sometimes we would go to the graphic novel and look back at things we read, which was super helpful because of all the pictures they were there for us. Yeah, that's something that I have become a big champion of the graphic novels. I also have begun to love both at home and in the classroom because you were talking about how sometimes when they get into these complex things, the kids aren't picturing it in their head and having the graphic novel there takes away some of the working memory and knowledge and makes inferencing easier that if they can inference in a picture instead of out of the actual long paragraph text that a lot of times they're able to recall the story and figure out what's going on and comprehend a lot more than just when they were reading these big long paragraphs.
(32:11):
So lately I've been shouting from the rooftops, like graphic novels are the best.
Becky Wilson (32:17):
Something else that helps make it easier to focus on comprehension too that I recommend, especially with my students who have trouble with their reading accuracy with their decoding, is to get the books on tape because then they're not struggling to try to pronounce each word, because when that happens, the comprehension goes out the window because they're spending so much energy just trying to decode each word that they can't focus on the comprehension of it. So yeah, the books on tape are very helpful for that.
Stephanie Landis (32:50):
That's a great idea. On campus, we use Epic, and Epic is free. Parents can get an epic account and you can from through the library, you can get books on tape too.
Becky Wilson (33:00):
I
Stephanie Landis (33:00):
Guess it's probably not really tape anymore. Totally right. Its not tape anymore. Audio books.
Becky Wilson (33:05):
Audio books, sunscreen, that's the appropriate terminology.
Stephanie Landis (33:11):
They don't have to put the cassette players in and the headphones on anymore like I did when I was younger, but just listen to it. And podcasts the same way. I mean I enjoy podcasts because what I do, but we listen to podcasts and they have great stories, short little stories for podcasts that are great for working on that comprehension, that language comprehension as well. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that we were thinking about touching on?
Becky Wilson (33:36):
Yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about the possible indicators that a child might, and we have touched on a lot of them, but I kind of did some brainstorming and thinking about what are the biggest indicators that a child might be struggling with a language disorder? And I kind of came up with some general ones that could also be other issues that might be going on like attention or intelligence or even any kind of neurotypical like the autism spectrum. But just in general, these things might be a sign that a child has a language issue going on and number one at the top of the list is they're not reading on grade level and just poor grades in general, and they seem to be not working up to their potential. It's like, well, he's a bright kid, why isn't he keeping up with his peers?
(34:34):
And then another big one is not participating in class discussions. A lot of times if a child, especially if they have difficulty expressing themselves or if they not really grasping the gist of the discussion, they're just going to shut down and they're going to sit there and they're going to be quiet. Also limited social interactions for the same reason. They're not grasping what's going on in the situation. They can't interpret another person's perspective, so they're just going to shut down. Also, if they struggle with organization or time management or getting their assignments done on time, that could also be assigned. And another big one is limited vocabulary. They seem to just use those basic concrete vocabulary words, but in terms of signs that it might be a language issue rather than another issue is difficulty following direction is huge. It's huge. And this doesn't just apply to academics, it's going to apply to every subject if a student struggles with following direction, but even extracurricular activities, like case in point, I had a student who's very active in sports, he's very athletic, he's 14, he is in eighth grade.
(35:52):
And when he came to me, the number one concern was that he couldn't follow his coaches' directions for football. He couldn't follow his coaches' directions. And he was just like, he's this star athlete, but the coach is getting mad at him because he's not following the directions. So I do the assessment and I find out he doesn't know right from left, number one. Number two, he struggles with sequencing multiple steps of a direction. Teachers, coaches in general, they'll give these really long instructions. And if a student is struggling with processing that or understanding the concepts involved with that, they're going to have a hard time following through with that. So following directions is big. We already talked about reading decoding, which is sounding out words that they see in text, reading comprehension, we've already touched on that, how important language is to that. Another big one is spelling that a lot of people think that's not a language issue, that's just remembering the rules.
(36:59):
There are so many components to spelling, just like with reading. And the only piece that's not related to language is motor skills. Because you've got to have a knowledge of phonics, you have to have a knowledge of the alphabet, you have to be able to have a knowledge of what we in the field call morphology, which is adding word endings to words like the ed, the ING, the plural S and ess. And you have to have a knowledge of what we call semantics, which is the meaning of language. And that's where words homophones that have different meanings and different spellings, but it's pronounced the same like the word rain, RAIN versus R-E-I-G-N. So the meaning of language ties into that too. And then of course the speech, knowing that the puff makes the puff sound, the P makes the puff sound that the th makes the sound.
(38:01):
A lot of times, and this is where articulation comes in the pronunciation, if a student pronounces their thss like fss, but they say thumb for thumb, they're going to write F when they spell the word. So spelling is a huge issue as well. Also telling a story, storytelling, if they struggle with telling a story, you can't tell a story. You're not going to be able to understand a story. That sequencing piece, first this happened, then this happened next, this happened, and something we didn't talk about yet today. And that is what we call word retrieval. It's just finding the right words to say that whatchamacallit, it's that whatchamacallit. Or they might say tiger instead of lion, because they struggle with finding the right words to say. And another big one is just their ability to ask and answer questions. They don't ask for help when they need it.
(39:01):
And then when they answer a question, it might be a correct thought, but it's not answering the right question. So those are just some of the signs with the younger kids at the kindergarten level, they're going to struggle with learning their sight words. I mean, it's amazing what these kids need to be able to master by the time they're finished with kindergarten, they don't know their sight words. They might be able to read 'em, but they don't know what they mean. Just a simple word, the has no meaning. So if they see that word, they're going to say that. They might say that instead of when they see that sight word card. And then of course, another big one is just learning the sounds that are associated with the letter symbols of the language. That's a big one for kindergarten, and I've kind of already talked about this with the older students.
(39:55):
It's that higher level language piece where they're going to struggle understanding figurative language like idioms, it's raining cats and dogs, or I'm as hungry as a horse, that kind of thing. Being able to understand that you can't interpret that literally. And the text interpretation is huge with the older students. And another big one with the older students is just being able to grasp information from when the teacher is up there teaching, lecturing and knowing what's important to write down, and then being able to take notes and organize those things. So those are just some of the signs I could go on all day about signs of language issues.
Stephanie Landis (40:40):
No, it's important because oftentimes once they get into the elementary age, we think it's just academics. But I mean academics, a lot of it is the underlying thread of this is all language. You mentioned storytelling. I love assessing a kid's narrative or storytelling ability because it gives me so much information on what their understanding of a story that I told them or the world around them and how they can organize it and sequence it and put it together. And if they're having difficulty retelling a story for a variety of reasons, it's also going to have difficulty them being able to write a story on their own or make up a novel story or write a friendly letter like they're supposed to in first grade. All of these things are so complex that it has to tie together so quickly and so easily. And for a lot of people, we just think it happens automatically because in our brains it does. But for these kids, if they're struggling, then it's not happening automatically and it's happening too fast and they're juggling too many balls and it starts to kind of fall apart. It looks like it's just an academic thing, but really it's those underlying lagging skills like you've been saying, that we can swoop in and help solidify so that they can show us how bright they are because these kids really are bright kids.
Becky Wilson (42:01):
Absolutely. And the other thing that we haven't really touched on is it can affect academics. Absolutely. It can also affect the social, the child's ability to navigate the social realm. But you think about it with the child's emotional health as well, thinking that I'm not smart because I can't do this, and that's one of the first things that I knock out of their vocabulary. This is not about intelligence, this is just about a learning difference. And I always share the story of me and chemistry. When I was in high school, I couldn't do it. I was in advanced placement English, but I couldn't do the chemistry. It's just a weakness for me. So we really talk about strengths and weaknesses, and when these kids start to make progress and they see that they're getting more independent, they become more self-confident, and they have increased self-esteem.
(43:02):
Another thing that I've seen happen in the classrooms, and it's just happened in the past year where a little kindergarten girl was getting in trouble all the time. She was getting sent to the principal's office. She was having her mom having to come and pick her up from school because she was crying and screaming, and she was acting out with other kids and do the evaluation, and she had a severe speech and language impairment. And you can imagine the frustration. And so kids who have these subtle issues going on, they can withdraw, they can act out just based on frustration. So there also can be an emotional and behavioral impact as well.
Stephanie Landis (43:49):
Meredith mentioned earlier if a parent had a younger kid or an older kid, and they thought that maybe in the past they hadn't been diagnosed with a language disorder, but now they're leaning that way. Where would you suggest parents go first for if they're looking for an evaluation?
Becky Wilson (44:05):
Well, I would recommend to call for a consultation, and that's the first thing that I do with the parents. I call and I spend time on the phone with them and really talk about the areas where the child is struggling, but really it needs to start a speech and language pathologist who specializes in language. One of the things I tell parents, like the other day, someone called me about working with their child on stuttering. We specialize just like doctors do. I am not a stuttering specialist. I certainly haven't worked with stuttering when I worked in the schools, going to a speech and language pathologist who specializes in that language piece, especially in the academic language piece, to go call for a consultation and if it's appropriate, set up an evaluation and assessment because it all starts there with determining exactly where the child's strengthens weaknesses are.
Stephanie Landis (45:05):
So I know some families get into this difficulty where they're maybe in a public school and they went to the public school and they're like, oh, other language isn't severe enough to get services here. Do you think that it would still be worthwhile looking into private therapy?
Becky Wilson (45:20):
Absolutely. Okay. And this was when I started doing contract work in the public schools. I actually did an evaluation where a child got a language score of 79 and I said they were eligible for services. They're like, Uhuh, the cutoff is 78 or 77, whatever it is. And I'm like, okay, so let's think about it. This child has a language iq, right? 79, her nonverbal IQ is 110. Is she not going to be frustrated in that classroom thinking she's not smart? That's a huge gap,
Stephanie Landis (46:01):
And we're not giving them up the tools to meet their potential.
Becky Wilson (46:04):
Exactly. That's always what I say. She is not working up to her potential. This is where her potential is non-verbally meaning take the language piece out visually. And a lot of the kids I work with are superior in the visual realm. Alright, so let's use that visual strength and use that as a strategy to get those verbal or non-visual skills up to where they should be, or at least within the range of normal functioning. And they're certainly capable of doing that.
Stephanie Landis (46:40):
That's great advice to continue, especially if a parent's still concerned and they feel like they went through all of that, but they're still not feeling satisfied and this child's still struggling. It's definitely worth looking and seeking for more.
Becky Wilson (46:52):
Right. And even if a child does qualify for services in the public schools, they could have a moderate to severe language disorder. And at the elementary school level, the most they're going to get is two 30 minute sessions a week group therapy,
Stephanie Landis (47:09):
And
Becky Wilson (47:09):
There's going to be a group of minimum three students up to six or seven in a group. And the kids all have different goals.
Stephanie Landis (47:17):
It's not enough.
Becky Wilson (47:18):
Yeah, it's not enough. The one-on-one is where the real gains are made.
Stephanie Landis (47:23):
That was so incredibly helpful. I felt like everything you said, I'm just over here nodding like, yes, yes, yes. That's exactly what we see here too. And exactly why Parish loves having speech pathologists in the classroom to collaborate with the teachers so that we can give them the content and some therapeutic intervention to help support the learning of the content. It's so important for a lot of these kids so that they can live up to that amazing potential that our students and all these kids have. Well, we really appreciate you having you here. It was a joy.
Becky Wilson (48:01):
I really appreciated being here. It was fun talking about what I love to do. It's my passion. Students learn by listening to the teacher's spoken language. If you think about it, they learn by listening to spoken language and written language in textbooks, and they have to use language to ask and answer questions, to participate in class, to demonstrate their knowledge on tests, to be able to perform a written assignment. It's all language. And without that oral language basis, it's going to be a struggle for them. But they can certainly make progress because like I said, these students that I work with are bright and they really take off and make good progress if they get the help that they need.
Stephanie Landis (48:47):
Well, we have one more hard hitting question for you.
Becky Wilson (48:49):
Okay.
Stephanie Landis (48:51):
We like to put our guests on the spot. At the end of every episode, we ask if you had one piece of advice to give to our listeners, and it can be specifically about today's topic or just general advice. What would you like to leave our listeners with?
Becky Wilson (49:05):
Well, I would say if there is any suspicion that there might be a language issue going on or even a speech issue, but the earlier the intervention, the better. I remember when I used to work with kids in pre-K, and I'm like, Hmm, this child's showing signs that he might be dyslexia, might have dyslexia and getting and working on those skills, and then by the time he's in first grade, he's able to read. It's just so important to get the intervention from a speech and language pathologist early. And what you all do at the parish school is so crucial to getting these kids to where they can really be able to benefit from classroom instruction.
Stephanie Landis (49:55):
I think that's great advice. We preach the early intervention advice here all the time, so I'm like, yes, that is fantastic. So again, thank you so, so much.
Becky Wilson (50:05):
Okay. You're welcome.
Meredith Krimmel (50:08):
Thank you for listening to the Unled podcast. For more information on today's episode, please see our episode description. For more information on the parish school, visit parish school.org. If you're not already, don't forget to subscribe to the Un Babbled Podcast on your app of choice. And if you like what you're hearing, be sure to leave a rating and review. A special thank you to Andy Williams, Joanna Rissmiller, and Molly Weisselberg for all their hard work behind the scenes. Thanks again for listening.