Decision Making Opportunities for those with a Communication Disorder

Making little choices is an important daily function. We make decisions about what to wear, what to eat, and what to do daily. Imagine if someone else was making these decisions for you. Would you be happy with their decision? Despite the insignificance of these decisions, not making these decisions yourself can be demoralizing and limiting. 

It’s important to recognize how this may affect those with a communication disorder. Helping them to express their needs and wants through giving options could dilute a potential frustrating situation for them. While they may not know how to respond to open ended questions, giving choices can help them give an appropriate answer while practicing recall. For example, “Would you like to eat a banana or an orange?” instead of "What would you like to eat?"

Giving them the option to make these decisions gives them a sense of independence and empowerment. This also demonstrates that you respect their desires and needs.

Benefits of giving choices:

• Allowing children to make decisions demonstrates the role communication plays in making requests in a concrete, immediate way. For example, “Would you like to tie your shoes or would you like me to do it for you?”

• Giving them choices creates opportunities to model and expand language.

• Offering choices helps to set expectations when giving directions. Phrasing a command as two choices can give you a quicker response while helping the child to feel independent and as if it was their idea. For Example, “Would you like to put your socks or shirt on first?” This questions has an underlying command saying “It’s time to get ready.”

Also, it can help to make the child feel in control of their environment. Giving two choices can help them to maintain predictability and reduce the uncertainty of their environment.

Helping a Child Who Stutters in Their New Classroom

Hello All.  Only a couple more weeks until it’s back to school. I thought I would dedicate my blog post this week to discussing fluency, concerns and strategies, with your child’s new teacher.

The Stuttering Foundation has compiled an excellent list called 7 tips for talking with your child.  Let’s start with my number one suggestion, which happens to be the first suggestion on the list, to improve fluency at home:

.        Reduce the pace. Speak with your child in an unhurried way, pausing frequently. Wait a few seconds after your child finishes before you begin to speak.  Your own easy relaxed speech will be far more effective than any advice such as “slow down” or “try it again slowly.” For some children, it is also helpful to introduce a more relaxed pace of life for a while.

Please visit stutteringhelp.org to see the rest of the list.

The Stuttering Foundation is a helpful resource for teachers as well.  Here’s what they recommend to help teachers improve their student’s fluency:

1.     Don’t tell the child to slow down or “relax.” Be patient and let her finish.

2.     Don’t complete words for the child or talk for him or her.  Once again, be patient and let him finish.

3.     Help all members of the class learn to take turns talking and listening. All children—especially those who stutter- find it much easier to talk when there are few interruptions and they have the listener’s attention.

4.     Expect the same quality and quantity of work from the student who stutters as the one who doesn’t.

5.     Speak with the student in an unhurried way, pausing frequently.

6.     Convey that you are listening to the content of the message, no who it was said.

7.     Have a one-on-one conversation with the student who stutters about needed accommodations in the classroom. Respect the student’s needs but do not be enabling.

8.     Don’t make stuttering something to be ashamed of. Talk about stuttering just like any other matter.

I would add a few more:

9.     Develop a system with the child who stutters, or implement class-wide, to decide who gets to answer questions.  Randomly calling on students can put them on the spot and increase the likelihood of stuttering. This could be raising a hand if they would like to be called on or walking around and tapping on the arm to signal that the student will be next to answer. 

10. To improve fluency when reading aloud have small groups or pairs of children to each other instead of to the entire class.

11. Teasing is unacceptable classroom behavior. It’s best to deal with teasing swiftly, whether a child who stutters is being teased or someone else.

12. Once again, focus on the content, not delivery, of the response or comment from the child who stutters (and all students) to positively reinforce respect in the classroom.

Wishing you a happy and healthy week,

Elizabeth

Asking the right questions

We all ask children questions whether they be your own or in my case, a child I work with.  My goal is to increase language as much as possible and the best way to do that is to ask WH- questions, such as who, what, when, where, and why.  "What is that?" can generate much more language than, "Is that a flower"?  One of my earliest moments of clarity during my education was learning how to stop asking yes/no questions and to start asking WH- questions.  Super Duper Publications has a handout that is an excellent resource to learn more about asking WH- questions, see the link below.  Whether you are in the car, at the store, or playing outside asking questions that start with who, what, when, where, and why will help to create many more opportunities for language than yes or no.  

WH questions-Super Duper Publications

-Cassee