Expanding Expressive Language

Expanding Expressive Language-Visual Cue & Guided Practice

With some students a functional and language arts goal is to describe events with detail.  Some students with significant delays or breakdown in communication may only speak with one or two words.  It is even possible that a student only knows a few words like yes or no and uses them to simply complete the communication exchange without meaning.  When you encounter a student such as this it is important to dedicate time to increasing their verbal expression so that they can meaningfully communicate with others, whether it is to identify a problem or simply engage in a conversation.

The link here takes you to a video modeling less than 3 minutes of guided practice using a visual cue card.  The visual cue card is used to prompt inclusion of a subject and noun in each expression and has extension visuals for where, when and who.  This particular student is showing more independence with providing the subject and verb and is ready to expand by adding details about where, when and who.  The use of this tool in this video is paired with his coursework for Unique Learning System with is a curriculum support for students with significant curriculum modification and adaptation needs. 

It can be easy (for us, the adults on the other side) to want to talk for the students but when there is a need to increase language skills we have to have the patience to wait for the student's think time and provide extra time to utilize strategies that helps the student become independent.  This is the goal of education to increase the student's skills, not our ability to interpret what we perceive as their intent.  

As always I advocate for staffing a self contained classroom environment with enough support to move students forward, not just 'keep them safe'. Along with the staffing, structuring the program's day to include teaming opportunities to review and coach or review strategies like this with paras is important for success .  

​Let's keep our special education teachers by providing them with the resources such as trained paraprofessionals and time within the day to team with both the micro (teacher and paraprofessionals) and macro (support service members as well as micro) teams.