What are spoken language disorders? Children with spoken language disorders have difficulty acquiring and using listening and speaking skills in the following areas:
- Phonology (the organization of sounds in language)
- Morphology (the structure and formation of words)
- Syntax (the structure of sentences)
- Semantics (the meanings of words and sentences)
Children with spoken language disorders often have difficulty acquiring literacy skills. Dyslexia, a learning disorder, involves impairments in reading, decoding and recognizing words. In addition, children with language disorders may struggle with spelling and writing.
Pre-Reading Skills
Children with spoken language disorders have a limited range of vocabulary, which can impact their pre-reading skills. As children learn to speak and acquire new words, they begin to see that the speech system is composed of smaller phonetic elements, i.e., individual speech sounds. As vocabulary acquisition accelerates, children analyze words at the syllable and phoneme levels. As they gain access to more words, they are able to make comparisons between words that enhance their pre-reading skills. For example, children begin to understand that the words “cat,” “car” and “can” are similar because they begin with the same sound. (Wise, Sevcik et.al, 2007)
In addition, children with spoken language disorders often exhibit speech sound disorders. Difficulties with the perception and production of speech sounds can impact phonological awareness, which is the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in words, a crucial skill in the acquisition of pre-reading and word recognition abilities.
Word Recognition and Decoding
Word recognition involves both phonological awareness and sight word identification, the ability to recognize a word and its meaning on sight. Vocabulary knowledge can affect word recognition skills. Children with greater expressive vocabulary have an increased ability to understand the meaning of words, as well as an intuitive sense of their phonemic elements, which enhances word decoding and recognition skills. Listening comprehension skills have also been found to be a significant predictor of word identification abilities.
Children with good morphological skills (i.e., those who understand the structure and formation of words) will more readily understand how the meanings of words change based on the addition or subtraction of additional “units” of sound. For example, a child can understand that the addition of “s” at the end of “dog” indicates a plural form, or that the addition of “ed” at the end of “walk” indicates the past tense.
Reading Comprehension
Language comprehension deficits affect a child’s reading comprehension. If a child cannot understand a sentence when it is spoken, he will not be able to comprehend a written sentence with the same information. To support reading comprehension skills, treatment should focus on basic language comprehension skills as they relate to written words.
To enhance the development of reading comprehension, we may target a child’s understanding of the overall organization of a text. How are the parts related to each other? Can we identify a sequence of events? What are the meaningful connections between ideas? It’s important to spend time dissecting and interpreting syntactically complex sentences, as well as enhancing vocabulary development.
Writing
When teaching a child to write effectively, we again focus on language comprehension skills. Graphic organizers are visual representations of the relationships between ideas, such as sequences, comparisons, and cause and effect. When children are generating ideas to express in writing, or working to provide structure in their compositions, graphic organizers help them to arrange their ideas before putting them on paper. We guide children through the writing process, which involves developing ideas, planning and organizing. We encourage them to read drafts of their work and reflect on how it can be revised and improved.
Conclusion
There are several approaches to consider when promoting literacy in children with spoken language disorders. A child’s phonological awareness impacts her ability to decode and encode (read and spell) words. Morphological abilities allow her to manipulate words in order to change their meaning or grammatical category (e.g., to form plurals or verb conjugations). An understanding of syntax allows her to read and interpret complex sentences. A deeper understanding of word meanings and an expansion of vocabulary skills lead to improved reading comprehension and writing skills, pre-reading abilities and word decoding. Please consult with your speech therapist or reading specialist for more information on how to enhance your child’s skills in these areas.