May 12, 2015

Imagine that you are a child and you have a new toy or a new outfit you want to show your friends. You are very excited but when you see your friend, your mind draws a blank! You freeze and cannot think of what to say. You may have trouble formulating the sentences to be able to tell about your toy, or you may have trouble thinking of specific words. Or you may just have not acquired the social skills to be able to easily interact and engage in conversation. You might be a child with a language disorder.

If you are showing an adult, the adult will likely be very good at noticing what you INTENDED to say and respond by filling in the blanks for you. “Hi Johnny! That’s a cool truck! Where did you get that?" But children are not as sophisticated as adults linguistically or socially, so the moment will probably pass without you getting to share information about your truck and you are left disappointed and silent.

For children with language delays and disorders, this is a very common occurrence. As I mentioned in a previous blog, “What the Big Bang Theory, Survivor and Social Skills Have in Common: It’s Complicated!” posted in November 2014, developing social skills is multifaceted and complicated, but a very necessary part of communication development. Children need strong social skills or pragmatic language skills to make friends and fit in. Language impairments as well as speech sound disorders can interfere with and significantly impact the development of social skills on many levels.

In my practice as a speech-language pathologist, I like to target the development of discourse skills such as narratives or story-telling and expository discourse such as in describing an object. Working on discourse teaches the child how to express themselves in a longer context than just the sentence level and prepares them better for what is required in school. One of the ways I do this is to teach a child to describe an object such as in Show and Tell, and I do this whether the child is being treated for just speech disorders or both speech and language. If it is only speech, I have them bring an object that starts with their target sound or ends with their target sound. Teaching a child how to describe a toy or object of their choice, as it turns out, can also help a child in social situations!

Last week, Olivia* wanted to show a friend her new “Build-a-Bear” she had just brought home from the mall. Her friend came over to play and Olivia had her bear ready to show. But Olivia once again froze and did not know what to say, until her mother quickly reminded her of her newly acquired description skills that she learned with me in “Show and Tell”. Her mother whispered, “Olivia, Show and Tell!”. Olivia’s face lit up and she began to tell all about her bear: “This is my new bear. I play with it. I made it at Build-a-Bear!” Success! I am now also using social stories to facilitate Olivia’s social language skills, but that is a topic for another time!

When Olivia’s mom proudly told this story to me, I was so happy I decided to share her success, with the mom’s permission. As well, May is Better Hearing and Speech Month! This is my little celebration!

Thanks for reading,

Cindy McCallum, M.Sc., R.SLP, SLP(C), CCC-SLP

Registered Speech-Language Pathologist

Founder, WiseOwlSpeech

*Name used with parent's permission