Supporting the Understanding of Questions

Year Level: Early Years, Foundation, Year 1 & 2, Years 3 to 6
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A fact sheet listing observations that indicate a child is experiencing difficulties with oral news telling and narrative retelling which may constitute a potential referral to a Speech Pathologist.

When asking a child questions it’s important to support and teach them what the question means and how you want them to answer it. If a child has difficulty understanding a question:

  1. Repeat the question using visual cues to support (eg: pictures and gestures)
  2. Rephrase the question or ask it in a different way
  3. Give two alternative for the child to choose between
  4. Model the correct answer

When to refer to a Speech Pathologist?
The production of news and narratives is more cognitively and linguistically demanding than participation in a conversation. In a conversation, speakers have support of partners to organise and maintain the discourse. When newstelling and narrating, speakers MUST independently organize and maintain extended discourse.
Observations Which Constitute A Potential Speech Pathology Referral

  • A child needs continual support to structure the news and/or story.
  • Child finds the task cognitively demanding.
  • A child’s speech is hesitant, filled with pauses and incomplete sentences. (The child may show visible frustration from limited expressive language ability.)
  • A child fails to provide the listener with specific information. (E.g. forgetting to explain the people or characters actions.)
  • A child has difficultly sequencing or ordering events correctly.
  • A child does not specifically name characters or people (and instead uses general terms of reference such as it, he, they …).
  • A child’s vocabulary lacks variety or when the child is unable to apply appropriate vocabulary.
  • Towards the end of pre-primary a child overuses “and” and “and then” to join sentences. A child should also be using more complex joining words such as next, last, so, but, …
  • Grammatical and tense errors are present in the child’s language.
  • Use this form for your observations for a Speech Pathologist referral.

Children with language delays will frequently suffer from anxiety when presented with written tasks.

To maximise a student’s written output and to minimise the anxiety experienced in the writing process students with language delays typically require:

  • Planning sheets to assist in the generation and structuring of their ideas/thoughts.
  • Additional planning time to generate and structure their ideas/thoughts.
  • Adult support to orally generate and structure ideas/thoughts. Sentence starters and target vocabulary words can be supplied to assist the process.
  • Reduced expectations due to the fatigue and anxiety experienced (e.g. students could be asked to complete the introduction, problem, character’s thoughts/feelings and plan instead of a full narrative.)
  • Written tasks should ideally be completed in stages. (E.g. “Today we will plan and write the introduction and the problem in a story and tomorrow we will add the character’s thoughts/feelings and plan.)

The issue of spelling in the context of written tasks.
It is important to keep in mind that students with language delays will rarely be able to focus on the language (i.e. generation and organisation of ideas) and spelling demands of writing simultaneously. To overcome this, it is suggested that students progress through the following stages:

  • Stage 1: Plan and structure ideas orally.
  • Stage 2: Complete the written task.
  • Stage 3: Finalise the written piece by editing.

Editing is best facilitated when students are trained to write on one line and miss one or two lines so that there is visual space to make changes and improvements to their original writing attempt.

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