RE:Subject: Language question

[Guest guest]

Dear ,

i seem to have a great urge to respond to your post since it hit a nerve.

reading the reasons others have given you, my first response is that we must

all look closely at the reasons others give to why your child is not

learning. i place them into the ongoing list of " Ways to Blame the Child. "

No reason that you listed had any " reason, " only excuses for not needing to

find a way to teach your child. Anytime someone asks me why a child isn't

doing this or that- the " why " is answered through a functional analysis and

then the information gained is used to develop a plan to teach. my thinking

immediately goes to what must i do to make the target behavior part of the

child's repertoire and not 101 reasons to excuse me from needing to teach. i

would suggest that you ask the resource teacher again, and when she is done

" excusing " him/herself from teaching, ask him/her to explain to you what

changes will need to be made to make your child's environment more condusive

to learning, this includes:

what is being done to get your child to initiate conversation?

how/if your child is reinforced for maintaining conversations?

where does he/she sit while directions are given?

how many opportunities for conversation are there throughout the day?

what is done during these opportunities to facilitate conversations?

is your child responding to peers' questions?

is your child using the skills learned at home at school? you mentioned that

your child asks WH questions, but is your child applying these skills at

school? it's very common for children not to immediately generalize

conversational skills if they do not have a history of being reinforced for

communicating with other children, and only adults.

if your child is truely " distracted, " what has been modified in the classroom

to minimize distractions?

ugh! the auditory processing excuse just gets me! when i run into that

excuse i ask.. how long does it take him to auditorily process " time for

recess " vs. " time for math. " i would assume that auditory processing

deficits are not " selective " to reinforcing activities. and if that is the

case, what is the teacher doing to assure your child is understanding the

directions? is someone allowing sufficient time for him to " process " and

respond? what other modalities are used to assure comprehension?

ok, i can go on for days, but i really needed to respond to your post. i

have worked with children who have been on the " cusp of conversation, " and

with lots of hard work, consistency across team members, and language focused

programs, they have made tremendous gains.

i would recommend getting, " Teach Me Language, " by Freeman & Dake. it

includes many different activities to promote language skills. you can

modifiy the activities to be effective learning tools for your child.

Selma ez, M.S.Ed.

ABA/VB Consultant

Chicagoland, USA

From: " Voyager Fan " <voyagerfan@...>

Subject: Language questio

testing as age appropriate in receptive language and mild

delays in expressive language. He can ask questions (who, what, where,

working on when and why and how) and is on the cusp of being conversational.

My question is this. I had another little 4 year old over for a playdate, a

girl, who is a few months younger than my son. She was talking about how

she would be turning 5 and be going to kindergarten next year, and taking

the bus, and riding with her friends, etc...

And it occurred to me, that my own son HAS NO CLUE about something like

that. I'm holding him back a year and he just has no idea, no clue that

when kids turn 5 most kids do go to kindergarten and to the big school,

etc...

I talked to the little girl's mother, and she said that she hadn't mentioned

kindergarten at all to her daughter, because she is considering holding her

back a year to give her the " gift of time " , but that her daughter is picking

it up from her friends at preschool and her friends around the neighborhood.

So my question is this, what skill/skills is my son lacking that he can't

pick up this kind of stuff from his peers, whereas the little girl CAN? I

can't even put my finger on it. I've asked several friends, and my child's

resource teacher, and I've gotten responses ranging from:

1. Some kids are just more clueless longer. They'll get it eventually.

2. Its because your son is a visual learner. Other kids can pick this

stuff up by language ALONE, but your son needs to see and experience

something for it to have meaning for him.

3. Your son is still a fairly new language user, and once he gets

experience with language, he'll improve his ability to comprehend.

4. Your son has auditory processing delays. He can't yet follow the rapid

fire pace of children's conversations, let alone convert their words into

anything meaningful.

5. Your son just isn't listening to the other children, maybe because the

preschool environment is distracting and very stimulating.

I guess of all of these make sense in a way. But how do I convert this into

a plan of action??

2 seems to make the most sense, and to me, this means that I need to GIVE

him as many experiences as possible, or teach him things in a visual way,

with pictures in a book or a video.

But I guess what I'm getting at is that I'd love my son to learn stuff where

I don't specifically have to teach him all the time.

Any ideas or insights?? Any success stories out there? THanks -