Upper

We’ve spoken in this space before (blog link) about the links between narrative language and problem solving that can be scaffolded through the use of Story Grammar Marker^® and its relevant icons, particularly the digital kit. Moveable icons are very useful in guiding thinking and discussion when bringing students back to a relevant detail (or story element) that they may not have been considering. See also the work of Westby and Noel (2014) on the connections between story and problem solving. Recently I have been working with several students on test-taking skills and strategies, a process in which it is helpful to address the thought processes, self-talk, as well as social cognition and self-regulation that underlie this situation...

In a little deviation from what might be considered “high” tech this month, I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the role of play in language interventions. Play is closely connected to narrative, as we often use story components to structure our play. I recently presented at ASHA Convention providing a “Play on Words” (click here for the handouts), and discussed a variety of playful contexts that can be used to target language (including narrative) and social learning. In particular, cooperative games with a shared goal and no real “winner”— except the group—can be used to target many communication skills...

Halloween is always a holiday that can be leveraged for engagement (and stories!) with our students. We hope you will add these three resources to your list to “harvest” annually! Through the pandemic telepractice-fest and beyond, I have enjoyed capitalizing on the trend of escape rooms for intervention activities. They make a great collaborative activity and encourage students to “think with their eyes” (ala Social Thinking^®) as they look for clues. Escape “rooms” from HoodaMath contain a brief “story” introduction--why you are trapped there, a Kick-Off, and what you need to plan to do to get out! And what is an escape activity but the exploration of a Setting? Use MindWing’s Setting Map to teach the language underpinnings of describing a setting. In particular, escape games are great for helping students to label the parts of a larger setting...

MindWing’s Digital Icons were first created in the wake of the Covid-19 emergency in order to offer access to tech-based material creation while many professionals were struggling to implement teletherapy as best we could. As you may know, the icon sets offer easy copying and pasting of the icons (including Story Grammar Marker^®, Braidy the StoryBraid^® and Thememaker^®) into various “blank slate” resources. This allows us to use word processors (Google Docs/MS Word), presentation tools (Google Slides/PowerPoint) or whiteboard software (Smart Notebook) as powerful narrative and expository teaching tools.

In July’s entry for 2021’s Summer Study Series, we’ll be looking at the critical overlap between narrative and expository language and our students’ access to the academic curriculum. Meaux and Norris (2018) tackle this topic in a tutorial for Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools entitled “Curriculum-Based Language Interventions: What, Who, Why, Where, and How?” I have always appreciated ASHA publications’ “tutorial” articles as I have found them to provide the most functional and practical information to be useful in interventions. The other “functional” consideration with this article is that including a focus on curriculum has always seemed natural to me. There is so much inherent language in school curricula and, from a linguistic perspective, this potential gap in comprehension and expression is why students receive our services...

Welcome to 2021’s Summer Study Series! From now through August we will be featuring digests of recently published articles that relate to assessment and intervention in narrative and expository language. This month we look at Investigating Adolescent Discourse in Critical Thinking: Monologic Responses to Stories Containing a Moral Dilemma (Wallis, Westerveld, Wallis & Snow, 2021). Notably published in ASHA’s Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools and characteristically practical, this one sure grabbed my eye! The investigators sought to assess older and younger adolescent language performance in response to a moral dilemma task...