CHAPTER 5

LANGUAGE

1. THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE
1. We think in language, and the use of language is an integral part of our society
2. Academic satisfaction and success is very closely related to language development
1. In the adult world, it is possible to find occupations requiring "little if any, sophisticated verbal competency"
2. School children find themselves constantly under demand to have good language skills
3. Summary of points of importance
1. Language is a critical medium for receiving information
2. Language is a major vehicle for transmitting to others ideas, feelings, or information
3. Language is an essential element for social interaction and influence
4. Language is a prime catalyst for memory
5. Language is a valuable code for reasoning, problem solving and creativity
6. Language facilitates thinking about thinking
7. Language serves as a means of introspection
8. Language is a tool for learning new motor skills



2. THE LANGUAGE OF LANGUAGE
1. For analytical purposes, language is divided into seven component
2. Phonology: the sounds and sound sequences that we process and/or produce
1. Phonological Subabilitites
1. Phonological awareness: a keen application of the distinct nature of individual sounds
2. Auditory discrimination: the ability to discern differences between sounds or combinations of sounds
3. Phonics: the association of sounds with specific visual representations of words (graphemes)
4. Phonetics: the analysis of the common sound elements in a language
2. Children must have a solid appreciation for differences between language sounds as a basis for processing and producing meaningful language
3. Phonology problems during critical periods of language acquisition may result in language processing difficulties
3. Morphology: the system of rules for combining the smallest units of meaning (morphemes) to form words or phrases
4. Semantics: taking language and giving it meaning, e.g., vocabulary, synonyms, antonyms
5. Syntax: a system of rules for joining words to make sentences, e.g., changes of meaning due to changes of word order in sentence
6. Discourse: the capacity to organize large volumes of language that go beyond the boundaries of sentences for extended descriptive pr\purposes, either for narrative appreciation (comprehension) or exposition (expression)
7. Pragmatics: the study of language in varying contexts, e.g., effects of setting, people, and other social variables on how we communicate
8. Metalinguistic awareness: the capacity to make conscious judgments about language, e.g., allows us to form judgments about the adequacy of our use of language
9. These components do not work independently of each other. Rather they work with and support each other, taking precedent when needed



3. LANGUAGE PROCESSING: DEVELOPMENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY
1. We are unclear about the relationship between language processing and language production
1. Does the ability to understand language develop simultaneously with the capacity to produce it? We don't know.
2. Likely, a somewhat reciprocal relationship exists between the two: expressing oneself helps the development of understanding, while experience processing language facilitates expressive abilities
2. Evolving Expectations for Comprehension
1. As we grow older, more strains are put on us to use language
2. School language stresses "situated meaning" - it is more non-context related than the language we use in conversation
1. Texts teach concepts. As these concepts become more complex, so does the language used to convey their meanings.
2. Teaching styles seem to evolve with the complexity of language, with teachers speaking faster, in longer, more complex patterns
3. Meta-linguistic skills must also evolve, as students are expected to be able to use rules of grammar, and "play" with language to understand concepts such as irony, humor, tone, and figurative language
4. As students get older, they receive this language more from reading than hearing, thus relying more heavily upon reading comprehension
3. In late elementary and high school, students are expected to manipulate language and apply it to other disciplines, such as applying mathematics in word problems (which presupposes effective comprehension skills)
4. As students age, they are expected to consume and process more language at a faster and faster pace, and ultimately, they are expected to use it (which can include "stress events" such as tests)
3. Phonological Growth
1. Phonics is a perceptual activity, and that perceptive ability must become keen enough to make fine distinctions between sounds that can be flowing very rapidly
2. As children grow, they must learn to manipulate these sounds in their minds, associate them with written letters, and then access them quickly from their long term memories
4. Semantic Growth
1. As students grow, they pick up more vocabulary, and they are expected to understand these words in different contexts. Many of these words are nearly exclusive to the classroom
2. Children develop tightly woven semantic networks which enhance depth of understanding and facility of use
5. Syntactic Growth
1. As students grow they are expected to interpret, comprehend, and use more complex sentences
2. Wallach says - rules that children had to learn must sometimes be unlearned
1. Canonical order: as we advance in our use of language, variety and creativity call for revamping rules such as "noun-verb-noun" order in sentences (often as we learn the passive voice). What is a set of rules at a younger age becomes an afterthought as we are expected to manipulate language
2. Clausal strategies: younger children tend to real linearly, using the "order of mention" strategy (the order in which they hear things in a sentence represents the actual order of events). Later children are expected to understand other clausal strategies.
3. Use of relative clauses
1. Parallel function: e.g., "The girl who borrowed the book walked home from school." "Girl" serves as an actor in both the independent and relative clause.
2. Embedded clauses: e.g., "the girl who borrowed the book walked home from school." "Who borrowed the book" is the embedded clause.
6. Growing Flexibility in Semantics/Syntax - some aspects of language development overlap the areas of syntax and semantics
1. Pronominal Growth - As they advance, students are expected to be able to identify precisely who or what a pronoun is substituting for
2. Minimal Distance principal - preschool and early elementary children tend to believe that the noun closest to an infinitive must be the subject of that infinitive (e.g., Mary promised Jane to buy the candy." At a younger age, a student may believe Jane was going to buy the candy.) This is another example of learning to break a rule, which in this case is usually done between six and nine years old.
3. Drawing inferences - during elementary and secondary school, children improve in their ability to draw inferences from language
1. They become more effective users of context and prior experience to interpret sentences and passages
2. As they enter adolescence, students are required to use higher order processing to deal with abstractions, symbols, metaphors, and ambiguity
7. Pragmatic Growth - as they grow, children become more aware of how social context can alter the meaning of sentences
8. Metalinguistic Growth
1. Children become increasingly capable of thinking about language as their metalinguistic skills expand
2. This growth allows us to understand how we use language and its various aspects, which is important to our growth of language ability
3. With so many subtleties of language--figurative speech, symbols, metaphors, etc.--it is terribly important that metalinguistic skills grow to allow us to manipulate language and learn to decipher our own and other's errors of language


4. LANGUAGE PROCESSING: DEVELOPMENTAL VARIATION AND DYSFUNCTION
1. Language disabilities are among the most common obstacles to learning and fulfillment during school years
1. The deleterious effects of language delays accumulate over time
2. Secondary effects include problems with attention, memory, socialization, self-esteem, and behavior (often a problem is to mistake these as primary sources of dysfunction when it actually is a language deficiency)
2. Components of Language Dysfunction
1. Weak Verbal Attention
1. Attention is essential for processing language. Attention problems can be with focusing on verbal detail. Others can be specifically with auditory processing or attention across all channels of processing
2. It is important that we determine if weaknesses of verbal attention are limited to language, are part of a broader picture of attention dysfunction, or are secondary to weak language processing
2. Weak Verbal Memory (we must break this up into less vague, more manageable sub-weaknesses)
1. Poor memory for words: problems in recalling specific vocabulary, synonyms, antonyms, definitions, and more importantly, associating one word with other words
2. Poor sentence and passage memory
1. Iin most cases, if a child has trouble recalling sentences, he may have trouble interpreting them. Confusion over grammar and syntax can make it difficult to store and retrieve complete sentences
2. Recall of passages may be impaired by poor comprehension, short-term memory weaknesses, generalized language delay, or organizational problems
3. Poor semantic encoding: nearly all, if not all, information we receive must be coded semantically. Some children have problems coding linguistic information. They may be very good at recalling visual imagery, but have significant weaknesses with the semantic encoding of language (sometimes associated with general memory difficulties).
4. Verbal sequential memory deficiency:
1. Trouble preserving serial order of multi-step verbal information, and mistakes involve transpositions of sequence
2. It is important to determine if a child's apparent difficulties with verbal sequential memory are part of a broader picture of language disability or of trouble with temporal-sequential ordering, or part of a more generalized weakness of short term memory or attention control
5. Weak recall of rules: processing a sentence ordinarily requires comparing it to previously stored correct structures.
1. If a child has a weak recall or recognition of grammar rules, sentence processing could be impaired
2. This could also be a sign of a deficiency in metalinguistic awareness
6. Note: these forms of verbal memory difficulty are unlikely to exist in isolation. If a verbal memory weakness is suspected, it should be investigated thoroughly to see if there are other difficulties as well. It is much more likely to be part of a broader language disability, deficit of sequential organization, or problem along the dimension of attention and retention.
3. Inadequate Phonological Awareness -- Good knowledge of phonics allows us to distinguish sounds of the English language from non-English sounds (both linguistic and non-linguistic). A phonological dysfunction is a disruption of this process.
1. Children with a phonological dysfunction cannot discern all features of a word
1. sisters/scissors (processing only first and last phonemes)
2. bald/bold (trouble with similar sounding phonemes
3. This can cause difficulty decoding multi syllabic words, which can be reflected in reading style. The result of this is deficient word analysis skills.
4. Some auditory discrimination deficiencies are tied to overall lags in metalinguistic awareness
2. Many children with language impairments have reduced capacity to contain language sounds in active working memory
1. Result: it may be hard to sustain individual phonemes in active working memory long enough to perceive a whole word and consult long term memory to derive its meaning
2. Such an impediment can disrupt the critical linkage of language sound processing to semantics
3. Many children with language-based learning difficulties exhibit a "rapid auditory processing deficit." This problem of not processing fast enough the acoustic signals within a language sound becomes exacerbated when transitions between language sounds occur rapidly
1. They are prone to comprehension problems, but may be able to compensate if other aspects of language are relatively strong
2. They may also have difficulty with rapid processing of sequential nonauditory signals, but the academic significance is not clear at this point
4. Delays in reading can result from poor associations between sounds and their graphemes. Spelling can also be affected.
5. Poor phonological sense can also make learning a second language difficult
4. Segmentation Deficits --many children with reading and spelling impairments don't understand that syllables within words can be broken into phonemes.
1. As a result, decoding words becomes difficult
2. In some cases the problems are associated with poor processing of the individual language sounds, while in others there exists a basic deficiency of segmentation and whole:part relationships
5. Semantic and Morphological Deficits
1. Semantic dysfunctions consist primarily of deficiencies of vocabulary
1. This may grow worse as students have to deal with multiple meanings of words
2. Such limited flexibility of word use can have cross discipline effects, such as in math word problems
2. Morphological problems include problems with understanding tenses, plurals, and possessive forms
6. Syntactic Weaknesses
1. Children with language related learning problems often have substantial delays in the acquisition of syntax. As a result they have trouble understanding that word order affects the meaning of a sentence
2. They are more likely to rely on the context in which the sentence is heard, on key words, and on their own expectations from prior experience to extract meaning from a sentence instead of using the grammatical features of the sentence
7. Problems with Pragmatics
1. Affected children may be overly literal in interpretations because of trouble comprehending speakers' intentions
2. The biggest problem lies in social situations, although pragmatics problems can also affect reading comprehension
8. Reduced Metalinguistic Awareness
1. Affected students have trouble going beneath the verbal surface of language processing, and may have trouble perceiving linguistic regularities or irregularities.
2. Wiig and Semel noted that affected children have trouble interpreting ambiguous sentences, idioms, puns, metaphors, and words with multiple meaning. They fare poorly with synonyms, verbal opposites, and verbal analogies
3. This lack of perception of any consistency in sentence construction or in language in general may impair comprehension
9. Weaknesses of Verbal Reasoning -- affected children have a hard time applying logic or problem solving strategies that are predominantly verbal
10. Systematic Interrelationships -- The weaknesses above (1-9) do not usually exist independently. Children who exhibit a breakdown in receptive language processing are apt to endure difficulties in several or all of these areas.



5. LANGUAGE PRODUCTION: DEVELOPMENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY
1. Word usage involves children's skills in morphology which grows considerably during school years.
1. Acquisition of morphemes progresses regularly during preschool and elementary years
2. Knowledge of morphological rules become well differentiated over the years, through elementary and into adolescent years
3. A child is able to meet the demands for acceptable meaningful communication
4. Convergent language (finding a specific word) is often called into play during adolescence (tests of intelligence and psycholinguistic ability)
5. Acquisition of an active vocabulary
2. Formulation of Senecas involves the acquisition of syntax
1. As children develop their understanding of rules and regularities of syntax, they are better able to use them for their own production
2. Effective use of language learned during school years enables children to express sophisticated concepts.
3. Narrative skills are those abilities that allow for the understanding and exchange of event-structured materials
1. Narrative development progresses during elementary years. Younger children talk about events with no sequence or cohesion
2. Older children are able to use increasingly complex language that includes central themes and events
1. Narrative ability is influenced by memory, cognition, culture, and overall linguistic skills
2. Narrative ability also forms the basis for increasingly structured written output
3. Narrative skills may reflect a child's divergent language abilities, allowing a child to express a difference of opinion
4. Elaborative language is associated with the growth of verbal creativity as well as conceptual ability to retrieve data from memory
4. Expository skills enable children to form detailed explanations and opinions through language with increasing effectiveness
1. Expository skills develop somewhat later than narrative skills
2. Differences between narrative and expository include content abstraction, text structure, grammatical constructions, and semantic precision
3. Expository skills require a child to have a sound understanding of the language he wishes to convey, a well-developed semantic network and knowledge of relevant vocabulary, and rapid and precise word retrieval



6. BRAIN LOCATIONS FOR LANGUAGE
1. Ninety-five percent of individuals reveal left-hemispheres that are dominant for language
2. Left hemisphere lesions or underdevelopment account for most language disorders in childhood
3. The left hemisphere is believed to aid in the acquisition of reading



7. LANGUAGE PRODUCTION: COMMON DEVELOPMENTAL DYSFUNCTIONS
1. Oral motor problems include poor articulation, sound sequencing, and other difficulties associated with the motor aspects of vocalization
1. Deficits of resonance (abnormal oral-nasal sound balance) most commonly manifest themselves as hypernasality or hyponasality which can have a disconcerting impact on communication
2. Voice dysfunctions -- deviations in the quality, pitch, or loudness of vocalizations. They can be either physiological or psychological in nature
3. Difficulties with fluency --disruptions in the natural flow of connected speech. Stuttering may occur at varying degrees of severity
4. Articulation problems are the most common speech dysfunction in childhood. Affected children have problems with the praxis, or motor implementation, of certain speech sounds. Errors can be classified into 3 areas:
1. Substitutions - replacement of one sound for another
2. Omissions - failure to produce certain speech sounds at all
3. Distortions - inappropriate sounds that replace the correct ones
2. Dysfunctions of word retrieval involves slow, vague or inaccurate word finding
1. Children with a word retrieval problems commonly exhibit a deficient vocabulary throughout their school years.
2. There is a high correlation between problems with naming and retrieving associations between visual symbols and the sounds they represent
3. Children who have difficulty with naming and word finding are not likely to be homogeneous. This would include
1. Phonetic errors without any semantic connection
2. Nonword phonetic errors
3. Semantically and phonetically related substitutions
4. Semantically, then phonetically related errors
5. Semantic errors
6. Circumlocutions
4. Children may feel socially overwhelmed and become excessively passive, withdrawn, or overtly aggressive
5. Often, children may be unable to participate in meaningful classroom discussion, causing them to experience a great deal of anxiety in the classroom
3. Morphological problems involve a weak sense of the meaningful structure of words, possibly interfering with vocabulary acquisition
1. Some children may have difficulty manipulating words flexibly to conform to rules of grammar and tense
2. Children with learning dysfunctions were less likely to understand how to form the plural possessive
3. They were less likely to know what sounded right in a sentence they formed
4. Syntactical deficiencies involve inconsistent or inadequate application of rules of grammar, tense, and word order
1. Children who have difficulty understanding subordinate clauses are prone to experience trouble using them
2. Speech may be characterized by excessive repetition, poor use of pronouns, and the absence of clauses
5. Deficiencies of verbal pragmatics involve trouble using language appropriate to the social context: inability to take the perspective of the listener
1. Children often fail to consider the needs of the listener when they communicate
2. They use personal and indefinite pronouns when specific nomination is called for
3. They assume the listener knows what the antecedent referent is, even if it has not been made explicit
4. They assume the listener has intimate knowledge about the topic
5. They have problems adjusting the tome of voice to specific social settings, and may leave out vital information
6. These children are often rejected by their peers or become very passive in their relationships
6. Discourse weakness involves difficulty producing extended language orally, and/or in writing: problems starting, ordering, emphasizing, and developing concluding thoughts
1. These children have trouble describing events or experiences
2. They are not organized so that the listener will be able to understand the story
3. Children often have poor planning and self-monitoring skills
4. Children who participate in sports may be deprived of the prerequisite skills needed to develop good literate language
7. Poor metalinguistic awareness involves a lack of awareness of how one sounds: inability to detect and correct one's language
1. Children with expressive language difficulties fail to detect their own linguistic errors
2. They lack the monitoring skills because they do not have the capacity to scrutinize language objectively\
3. They may be delayed in their ability to use figurative language and analogies
4. They lack the skills to revise or refine what they have just said
8. Special Challenges of Bilinguals
1. Children who are bilingual face many challenges even when there is no language disorder involved:
1. The sound system and syntax of the second language usually are very different from the first and interfere with learning a new language
2. The child has to master the second language at the same time as they have to learn academic content in that language
3. They may experience a culture gap in knowledge and prior experience so school learning may lack relevance
4. Sometimes bilingual children also have minority status so they feel alienated
5. Problems can be accentuated if the child's parents have had only minimal schooling
6. Teachers may lack the training to understand bilingual children, and feel helpless and confused
2. If a bilingual child is having difficulty learning a second language, it can be very difficult to sort out the above factors from the possibility of a language disorder
3. General considerations for the education of bilingual students
1. Some learning of language should take place in their native language, such as reading materials
2. Curriculum should be relevant to their cultural background
4. If a bilingual/bicultural child is failing in school it is probably inappropriate to argue whether the cause is a disorder or environmental: we must consider multiple factors relating to physiological-genetic effects, environmental forces, cultural influences, early health, and life circumstances



8. ASSESSMENT
1. A well-integrated set of observations is necessary to account for the broad range of linguistic functions
2. An assessment should not merely be a search for deficits but also a consideration of underlying or undiscovered linguistic talents that can be utilized to overcome or bypass developmental dysfunctions in other areas
3. Historical Data
1. The developmental history ought to include questions specifically geared to language acquisition. There are many sings of language dysfunction
1. Trouble following directions
2. Need for repetition of verbal instructions
3. Problems understanding questions
4. Difficulty concentrating in verbal settings (classrooms) but not in other settings
5. Excessive use of simple, declarative, incomplete sentences
6. Articulation difficulties
7. Verbal hesitancy
8. Poor use of connectives in speech (lack of cohesion)
9. Expressive repetition or redundancy
10. Trouble organizing discourse
11. Lack of verbal participation
12. Late acquisition of decoding skills for reading
13. Poor reading comprehension beyond fourth grade despite good sight vocabulary
14. Obscure use of pronouns and names
15. Poor written expression
16. Difficulty solving word problems in math
17. Statements suggesting poor verbal social skills (pragmatic deficiencies)
18. Trouble learning a foreign language
19. Excessive difficulty mastering grammar
20. Diminished vocabulary or trouble acquiring new vocabulary
2. Considerable research supports the idea that early delays in language acquisition can predict later language-based learning problems, but some students with language learning problems do not experience delays until later.
3. Predisposing factors may be discovered after a careful review of the child's early health and family history
1. Recurrent otitis media (ear infections
2. Certain early health difficulties (e.g., meningitis)
3. Family history of problems with language acquisition, comprehension or speech production
4. The child's current history is most relevant; of particular interest is how does this child's language comprehension and production compare to that of siblings and peers. Asking the right questions is key
1. Are there problems with articulation?
2. How effectively does he participate in classroom discussions?
3. Does the child have problems following verbal directions?
4. Does he have trouble telling a story or relating an experience?
5. Are there reading comprehension delays
6. Are there indications of difficulty solving math word problems/
7. Are the specific weaknesses of auditory attention (i.e., listening ability) that may indicate either primary attention deficits or weakness of attention secondary to poor language processing?
5. Any individual item suggests many possible causes
6. Only by discovering a significant cluster of items suggesting linguistic dysfunction can one begin to discern a consistent diagnostic pattern
4. Direct Sampling of Language
1. There are hazards that can adversely affect results and interpretations of linguistic assessments
1. Cultural Contamination
1. Any difficulties with language testing may reflect cultural variation rather than a neurologically based deficit; virtually all aspects of language are influenced by one's cultural background
2. Still, all children may need to survive in a traditional middle-class oriented educational setting
3. A child with a bilingual background can be tested in both their native language and in English to discern whether a language problem is the result of bilinguals or language disorder
2. Specificity of Findings --Determining whether a child's apparent language difficulties are limited to language is important
1. Is trouble following verbal directions due to problems with language comprehension or to the sequential presentation of those directions?
2. Is the weakness in language intake or generalized attention deficit?
3. Is poor narrative ability a language delay or problems with organization?
3. Emotional Factors --Anxiety restricts language output and may interfere with language assessment
4. Motivational Factors --If a child is not particularly interested in the assessment, a language delay may be more apparent than real
5. Artifacts of Testing
1. Language assessment frequently removes language from its appropriate context
2. One child may perform better under normal circumstances, another may rise to the occasion, and still another child's language may appear better on language testing than it is on a day to day basis
6. By using several kinds of tests and integrating them with historical observations, a clinician should be able to recognize, correct for, and eliminate these contaminants
2. Informal Language Assessment
1. Conversation during testing can provide useful clues. Repetition, simplification, production difficulties, length of sentences, hesitation, problems in fluency, difficulty finding words, articulation difficulties or unusual voice resonance can be observed
2. Asking highly specific questions can help the examiner gauge the length of response time, accuracy of answers, and comprehension of the questions themselves
3. Formal Language Testing
1. Diagnosticians should assemble their own collection of instruments
2. The specific components of an assessment battery should be:
1. Discrimination and phonology
2. Vocabulary and semantics
3. Morphology and syntax
4. Metalinguistics
5. Following verbal instruction
6. Related educational testing - decoding, reading comprehension, spelling, written language
7. Articulation
8. Word retrieval
9. Sentence formulation
10. Discourse skills
4. Reconciling Differences
1. The evaluation of a child for language disability may produce conflicting data. children may perform differently in different settings, and the diagnostician must be keenly aware of expectations and limits imposed by different scenarios in the life of a child\
2. A discrepancy may exist between receptive and expressive language ability. A child may be adept at processing language but have great difficulty producing language
1. A child performs well during reading comprehension and understands what a teacher says during lecture, but may hesitate when finding words, formulating sentences, and or organizing narrative]
2. A child is an avid participant in class discussions with strengths in producing discourse but is an extremely poor performer in language arts subjects
3. Just because a child is verbally fluent and effective does not rule out the possibility of language dysfunction
3. Another common discrepance is that between divergent and convergent language demands
1. A child may be proficient (by history and direct observation) at elaborating on ideas, using his or her own linguistic repertoire, but have trouble finding precise words on demand or answering questions with correct verbal responses
2. Other children may be just the opposite --quite skilled at giving precise responses, but unskilled at using language in an abstract, elaborative, or imaginary way
4. Other discrepancies involve contrast between linguistic proficiency in social and in academic settings; children who are slow to warm up may become increasingly fluent over time
5. The domain of linguistics is so broad that only a highly specific description of the child's language in various contexts is likely to be helpful and truly representative



9. MANAGEMENT
1. Demystification
1. It can be difficult to explain about language problems to a child who has language problems
2. Use concrete analogies, talk about the difference between operating with language and operating with visual symbols
3. Distinguish the exact nature of the difficulties: receptive language, expressive language or both, at the level of sounds, words, sentences, discourse
2. Bypass Strategies -- for a list of bypass strategies see Levine, p. 181-182
3. Direct Intervention
1. Speech/Language Therapy
1. Availability varies from school district to school district
2. Therapists can address both speech and language problems
2. Phonological Deficits
1. Phonological awareness problems should be worked on in conjunction with decoding
2. Problems with rate of processing --research shows that children can be treated with technology -- actually slowing down the rate of sounds being heard
3. Semantic Weakness
1. Vocabulary improvement depends on increasing networks of concepts, not words in isolation
2. Semantic maps can be helpful
4. Sentences/grammar
1. Use cloze exercises
2. Sentence formulation exercises can help (child is given key words and is asked to create sentences, or given two short sentences and asked to combine them into a complex sentence)
5. Discourse
1. Provide intense practice in summarizing and creating their own discourse, defending their own opinions
2. Stress oral presentations especially tied to child's area of interest
6. Verbal Pragmatics -- Some children may need counseling in social skills and instruction on how their language is interpreted by others
7. Reading
1. Children with oral language disorders often have reading problems, yet reading is an excellent way to improve oral language
2. Provide high interest reading materials, encourage as much reading as possible
3. Use books on tape
8. Word Games
1. Highly motivating words games can be used at home
2. Provide games that emphasize word finding, verbal opposites, categories, crossword puzzles, games that require spelling
4. Rights of Nonverbal Students
1. Children with language problems often suffer humiliation in school
2. Provide opportunities to emphasize non-linguistic talents: artistic, mechanical, mathematical, athletic