Visualizing/Verbalizing ????

Whyis the parent refusing? I am a speech therapist and the longer the child goes without proper intervention the bigger her language issues become. Having a thorough speech and language evaluation would pinpoint exactly where she is breaking down in her skills. Then the SLP could work in collaboration with the teacher and parents to remediate. The Visualizing and Verbalizng program is good but I feel really strongly about getting the eval because that would be in the child’s best interests.

Since you’re an SLP….do you happen to know the best tests for evaluating possible expressive language deficits?

I agree 100% that the child should be evaluated. I’ve tried all year to get the father to agree. The only reason I could get from the father was he didn’t want her “labeled”. He was also afraid we would try to get her certified with a learning disability. The mother has been in favor of testing for the last two years.

From what I can gather the parents had many very heated discussions over the testing issue this year. The mom said they finally got to where they had stopped talking to each other for a period of time. I hated to push much harder because of the turmoil it was causing at home.

little girl will be the casualty. Can you tell me specifically what you see in the classroom and I can give you some ideas to try. I wish I could talk some sense into the parents…It makes me want to cry… :-(

But one of the best ways to see how a child uses language expressively is through a language sample. It takes a lot of analysis on the SLP’s part but you can analyze pragmatics, syntax, semantics, topic maintenance,etc. all through a language sample.

Off the top of my head…here are some tests…for expressive language

Expressive one-word picture vocabulary test revised, the Comprehensive receptive and expressvie vocabulary test. the WORD-Test-Revised. The Test of Adolescent Word Finding. The CELF-IV is coming out which is a good test for expressive and receptive analysis.

Hope this helps..

You actually start with her describing a picture. It sounds like the parents need a ‘tough love’ act by you. Lay your cards on the table. I have a great nephew that is suffering from apraxia and the parents waited forever to have therapy for him. They are still somewhat in denial even though it runs in the father’s family.

I had a similar situation happen with the Dad being the lone holdout and the mother wanting to get her teenage daughter help. In this case the child was ADHD and the dad and mom were divorced because of the Dad’s own ADHD. Thee Dad was a successful millionaire entreprenuer, an impulsive, talkative, big kid, with toys out the wazoo’s and looked like he stepped out of a 70’s movie with the clothes, long hair etc.

The Dad didn’t want to do medication because he had made it on his own without meds. Finally things were hitting the fan all over the place and he came over with his daughter to have a “talk” with me.

What I did was “listen” to the dad. I asked him to tell me about his childhood and his teenage years. Out came this story of struggle and dealing with his own attention issues, his failed marriage etc. His daughter was listening to all of this and when he was done “sharing” I then told him.

“You are lucky that you were able to “pull” it together, you have strengths that you have used to be the successful entreprenuer you are. However, listen to what your daughter is going through and this young teen shared her own personal angst, in trying to focus in class, make friends, stopping impulsivity, her inattentive behaviors with homework, etc..

Then I told him, “Your daughter is struggling, and has been since she was in kindergarten, now she is in 8th grade and something has to change. The pressure will continue to mount especially as she starts high school, and she is tired of struggling, she is giving up. You were able to make it because of your drive and compensatory strategies, but your daughter isn’t 40 years old, like you. She is asking for help by what she has shared. It was like a light bulb finally turned on in the Dad’s mind, and he almost started to cry. The mother called me later that night and said, “I don’t know what you did but thank you!!. I really didnt’ do anything, I just listened and the girl finally went on the medication her psychiatrist had wanted to put her on for about 6 months…and things changed dramatically after that.

Talk with the SLP at your school, ask her to give you some information to “share” with the parents about the benefits of early intervention vs. “holding out and having things hit the fan when they are teens.” Then have a meeting with the parents but spend more time listening to what he has to say and then when he is done sharing, show him the facts and assure him that his little girl deserves this chance to get intervention otherwise she will end up feeling lost and frustrated and the label he fears that she will be placed on her by the school will happen in a different way. His little girl will eventually label herself as “stupid, and feel like a failure” and her language issues will interfere with her abiltiy to express herself, learn and to deal with her peers.

I hope this helps you somewhat, I know it is really frustrating dealing with parents at times, the dad probably has some similar issues that are hard for him to face.

Hi Pattim,
Thanks for sharing that info. I’ll have to see which of these tests my son may have taken. I’m pretty certain he has expressive language and word retrival issues (great difficulty describing events, situations,etc… and daily instances of not being able to remember words). So far the tests he has taken don’t indicate a problem so he receives no services. But I think next year (when he enters 4th grade) these difficulties will be more obvious.

I have been using Language Wise with him and I try to get him to visualize events hoping this will help with description. Also, I’ll ask questions like, “What color is it? Size? When did you see it?” etc… After he finally figures out the word I have him brainstorm alternative words he might have used in describing the object he had difficulty naming.

Sounds like you are doing some great things and unfortunately for the areas that you are working on there is no “quick” fix.