New Question About Cognitive Abilities

I’m not sure I would consider the example you used as a processing issue per se, but definitly a language disorder?

But yes, we had some issues with that when she was young. I can’t remember exactly when it was the hardest for her. But the whole ‘main’ idea, comparing/contrasting were hard at first. This is something a good SLP should be able to work on.

Have you gotten testing done yet? You school should be doing a full eval on your dd. Until you get that done, you won’t know exactly what her strengths and weaknesses are. Once you know that, you can target your remediation program.

I had a long chat with the SLP (private) last week. She thinks that my dd is not visualizing. Which would explain a lot.

When you say “remediate” do you define that as “correct the problem”? Just curious. The pediatrician also said this can be remediated.

Today the school principal asked “What if we can get more time with the speech therapist here at school?” He asked this because I asked him what the policy is on missing school hours for private speech therapy that the school is unable to provide. My issue is that the school gives her group therapy and the SLP is only there twice/week and she is already seeing her on those days, so how could they increase it? I told him “Honestly, I did not think to ask about that, but should have, except that I did not know it was possible since they never offered it” Talk about “parents need to know what to ask!!” Anyway, I’m thinking maybe less resource room and more slp next year. More time with the school SLP AND also go full intensive on the private as well.

What I want to know is “How much can be fixed?” If I had a crystal ball I would look into the future to see where we will be with language abilities, but unfortunately I can’t do that.

Thanks again,
Kathryn

Did you get any testing results from the private SLP?

re: visualizing This was a big problem with my dd (as I had mentioned in other posts). And this can be remediated (meaning you can teach them to visualize).

re: school SLP. 2x per week with a group of kids cannot possibly be effective. You need 1:1. Plus you don’t really know exactly what the school SLP is doing? How can you individualize if you are in a group? ex. my dd had pull-out with a group of kids to help with visualization/memory. They would ‘show’ her an object and then have her visualize it/describe it and then recall it(and then they told me how great she was doing). That might be good for kids who have problems with visual memory, but we had problems with auditory memory. She needed to be able to picture an object in her head when someone ‘said’ it. She has great visual memory. So it was a complete waste of time.

I also want to tell you what my dd told me just couple months ago. When she was in 1st grade getting pulled out from class, she thought she was special and getting a treat. By 3rd grade, she was realizing it was only the ‘dumb’ kids who got pulled out. Her self-esteem started to plummet and socially she felt outcast. (I’m just now discovering the damage this had on her).

She told me the most humiliating part for her in elementary school was getting pulled out for resource room. In hindsight, I wish we never had an IEP and just did everything privately. The inadequate resource that the school provided never helped a bit, it was all a waste of time and waste of self-esteem.

This was our experience. You may have a completely different one.

That’s interesting what your daughter said. Mine just asked me the other day why all the other kids know the answers and she doesn’t. It broke my heart. I just want her to be able to feel normal. That’s why dancing is so good for her because she feels like everyone else when she dances. Today she said to me “I can go by myself. You don’t have to watch.” She NEVER volunteers to do anything by herself. I mean she literally volunteered.

We will get the testing results from the SLP tomorrow morning. She didn’t even feel the need to do the testing unless I wanted her to because I had given her such a full picture of my daughter, but I asked her to do it anyway. I know she did the TOLD first, but I’m not sure what else she did. She did tell me that she had a very short digit span, but when they were doing the numbers while tapping the desk with their hands she could do a lot more.

I have a meeting next week with the possible 3rd grade teacher for next year. I just want to sit down and talk to him now so that we are on the same page in the fall. I have been questioning the idea of using the resource room at all. The Kinder and 1st teacher (same teacher for both years) did not want her to go to resource room because they were using a different phonics program and thought it would confuse her. When I ask “what” they are doing with her either in resource room or in speech I get very vague information. Or usually generally what they are working on, and then they say that she is doing really well, but no specifics. I know I could go observe, but I cannot be there every day and I have my preschool son to think about too. I can’t bring him along if he’s not in preschool at the same time that she is in speech.

The 1:1 thing is interesting. I had thought group was a good idea because of the social language portion. Talking to other kids, etc… or just conversational speech. It would be easier for her to talk to other kids than to talk to the teacher. And she doesn’t really like the girl she goes to speech with, although there are others and I’m not sure how she gets along with them. So, I will wait to see what the private SLP says tomorrow and will post an update.

Thanks again for sharing your story. It is amazing when you find someone else with similar issues, although I know they are not identical.

Oh, one more thing, I got my dds writing tests for this year and the difference is like night and day between Sept and now. Even Sept to Jan was a huge difference in handwriting. Jan to now is full sentences except that instead of putting a period at the end of the sentences, she put one at the end of each line. Oh well, it’s closer at least, but it goes in order of events. It was a narrative about a field trip that she went on. My dh went too, so he was able to attest to the events she wrote about. Pretty cool.

Kathryn

Went to private SLP today and got tons of information. We met with her for 2 hours, but left there feeling very good about things.

Here are the test results: Note that some are not scored because Michelle could not do the tasks without being cued. Instead of just giving her a 0 she decided to cue her and invalidate that subtest because the point of the testing was to gain information on how to help Michelle with therapy and it did give her helpful information in that she knows where the specific deficits are based on what cues helped.

TOLD-P 3
Picture Vocabulary 9%
Relational Vocabulary not scored
Oral Vocabulary not scored
Gram Understanding 1%
Sentence Imitation <1%
Word Discrimination not scored
Phonemic Analysis 50%
Word Articulation 50%

Notice the sentence imitation was so low. That’s because she had to repeat imitation without any visual cues. This was (IMO) similar to karloon’s Balloons in that she could do it much better with the pictures. Take the pictures away and she could not do it at all.

CTOPP
Phonological Awareness Subtests:
Blending Words 63%
Blending Nonwords 75%
Sound Matching 25%

Phonological Memory Subtests:
Memory for Digits 9% (age 5-3)
Non-word Repetition 37% (age 7-6)

Rapid Naming Subtests
Rapid color naming 9%
Rapid Object Naming <1

Sound matching was interesting because she was able to match beginning sounds at 100% and ending sounds at 0%. She kept going back to what the beginning sound was even though seeing the word visually and knowing where the ending sound was located, she could not pick a word with the same ending sound. She said it’s because she is focusing so much on the beginning sound and still processing the beginning sound that the ending sound is lost. I believe this is where the phonemic awareness was a deficit. She said “Her relative strength with the nonword task reflects her ability to code information phonologically for temporary storage in working memory.” In terms of the rapid naming tasks, she could name everything, but not with speed. She did better with colors because they are more familiar. So, she has accuracy, but not speed.

So, she said that rapid naming compounded with phonological weakness was considered a double deficit, which affects her reading abilities moreso than someone with either of those 2 deficits alone.

In the summary section, she stated that her difficulties are in the areas of auditory memory and temporal auditory processing. Difficulty was noted with most auditory processing tasks, especially those involving storage, retrieval and manipulation of information. Phonological processing is inconsistent, with some very weak areas.

So, we’re going to start therapy 3x/week during the summer and cut back to 2x when school starts. For future, she recommended Fast ForWord for possibly later next year or next summer to improve temporal processing. We already discussed that she could not possibly do the program right now.

Anyway, just thought I’d update you.
Kathryn

Kathryn, that’s great news for you on getting the testing done. Now you have more of a starting point and direction.

You may want to post your results in a new thread and on the teaching LD section. There may be better ‘experts’ to help you interpret the scores and provide additional guidance on what kind of programs and accomodations you could look at. I use to be pretty good at the test scores, but I’ve been away from it too long and just don’t know what to advise you on each subtest.

I’m not sure what your SLP means by ‘temporal auditory processing’?

Overall it sounds like your dd’s biggest issue is auditory memory. And this tremendously impacts her ability to process, store, retrieve any kind of auditory information. Auditory memory was a huge issue with my dd as well.

Did the SLP indicate what therapy she was going to use to help improve this?

Hi there,

Temporal processing is the speed of processing which enables you to process very fast phonetic elements. This is what FFW is designed to improve upon.

I actually feel very well informed by the SLP in terms of interpreting the test scores and she is very experienced in working with IEPs and will attend the IEP meeting with me in the fall, as well as help me prepare for setting her goals.

Next week I am meeting with the 2 3rd grade teachers at the school to get a feel for who will be the best teacher selection for next year. From what I hear (from someone at the school whom I trust) they are both excellent. It’s just a matter of picking which one is up for the challenge.

Yes, auditory memory as well as recall or retrieval of information and some auditory processing issues such as discrimination, processing speed (temporal) and verbal mediation (self talk) are all issues. There are things that she will work on in therapy. Like you said, knowing exactly where the deficits are makes it easier to target the therapy process. Also, she said that I will be able to view everything they are doing in therapy via a monitor system. It’s best for me not to be in the room because my daughter will look at me for the answers and depend on me too much. But by watching what they are doing, I will be able to contine at home with her on her non therapy days. She said we will have about 30 mins/day to do at home in addition to what they do there. She hasn’t said if they use any of the Listening Program or Tomatis or anything like that. She did say that they were a beta site for the FFW to Reading program and she suggested that for later next year or next summer. That is for the processing speed. If you’re not familiar with it the program is a lot like Earobics in the types of games except that the sounds are digitally slowed down and the quiet sounds we hear are made louder. You listen through special headphones. The point of slowing it down is because your brain is not precessing certain sounds fast enough, so they slow it down for your brain to be able to process the sounds and learn them and then it gradually speeds up until it is at normal speed.

Thanks again,
Kathryn

Hi Kathryn,
You wrote:
“Yes, auditory memory as well as recall or retrieval of information and some auditory processing issues such as discrimination, processing speed (temporal) and verbal mediation (self talk) are all issues.”
Where I would just pick up on ‘verbal mediation (self talk)’. In regard to our earlier discussions on sub-vocalising.
If you consider visual memory and recall and retrieval, you can see how this relies on the ability to visualise.
Where auditory memory recall and retrieval, requires a parallel auditory skill to visualising.
In our earlier chats, you raised the difficulty with explaining sub-vocalising to your daughter.
But the term ‘self talk’, could be a simple way to put it to your daughter?
It provides a way of explaining it, that she could understand.
Forgive my nagging about this, but I just want to confirm that it is not something that Michelle hasn’t learnt how to do?
Geoff,

I am no SLP, but what I’ve learned from the one my daughter went to is that there is a order of learning language. It goes from Labeling,Functions,Associations,Categorization,Antonyms,Synonyms, Similarities and Differences, Multiple Meanings, Idioms,to Analogies. It sounds like she hasn’t gotten the Categorization part (cat is a cat and dog is a dog vs they are animals or pets), although she may need the preceding levels.You can help her with categorization by asking her what do a chair,sofa,and table have in common? They are furniture.Usually you start off with real objects,then pictures and then just using words to get a response. And then you want to see if she can give quicker responses to your question.To help her give a response you can give additional time,repeating request,ask questions, give beginning sound of answer, then giving answer.LinguiSystems has “Language Processing Treatment Activities” by Gail Richard and Mary Anne Hanner and was around $40 in case you see a need there. My daughter is going into highschool and her synonym and antonym use is at 40%.I got the book as the school district is yanking me around and I can’t wait for them to do it.

Hi there,

Yes, I remember our conversations. At the time I was thinking in terms of hearing a voice in her head when she reads, which I believe she can do, but in terms of hearing a voice in order to reason through something, I don’t believe she has this ability, although I could be wrong. It seems from the testing that she does not do this. You are right about that. In terms of visualizing, she definitely can be taught and I’m sure the self talk will be taught as well. It’s still not something I can talk to her about, because I’m not sure she will get it. Even if she answers me if she does not fully understand what I am asking then I wont know if she is accurate. Either way, this will be addressed in therapy.

This was interesting the other day. We were driving home and it was dinner time and I know we were all hungry. I was at a red light and looked in my rear view mirror. She was mouthing something as if she was talking to herself, but there was no voice, so I thought maybe she was talking to herself. I called her name and she immediately said “Mommy, I’m hungry”. I am betting that’s what she was saying to herself. So, her mouth was moving, but no sound. She had to have been hearing the voice in her head. But to say something like that in your head is not the same as reasoning through something or working out a problem in your head. Maybe it is, but in the very simplest form, like for a much younger child.

Kathryn

Auditory mom, we were posting at the same time! Anyway, I actually got 2 of the quick play folder games from linguisystems. We got the categories and the associations games. My dd likes to play as does my 5 yr old son. I can definitely see this as something helpful. I am also very optimistic in that I know we can be helpful to her at home. This was interesting from what the SLP told me. She was intrigued by the discrepancy in some of my daughters test scores. She scored either very low or average or high. The 2 ares where she was way above average were in blending words and blending non words. During spring break we worked on compound words at home. Then in the car something came up as it was a compound word. From then on the kids have been fighting over who’s turn it is to come up with a compound word. The test was that the slp would say 2 words and she was to blend them together. The game the kids play at home is they say something like “back+pack=backpack” and it goes on until we can’t take it anymore. LOL! So she took that same ability and blended non-words together scoring at the age of a 13 yr old. (she’s 8, by the way). So, the observation from the SLP is on areas where she scored well, these are areas where she has been taught. Most kids automatically pick this stuff up, or I suppose they pick it up in class, but she has not been able to just pick up these skills so she has to be taught and I know once she is taught she will be ok.

Thanks,
Kathryn

Hi Kathryn,
Self talk is not actually taught by speech and language therapists, as I’ve found through discussions with therapists and their organizations throughout the world.
Where their scientific position is that self-talk is what they term: ‘implicit’. Meaning that it is something that everyone can do, that we don’t need to learn it.
Your statement: “But to say something like that in your head, is not the same as reasoning through something or working out a problem in your head”.
Is not really understood by therapists currently.
What they confuse with self-talk, is the use of ‘Cues’ to retrieve words for self-talk.
Usually Visual Cues, such as a picture, a written word or a gesture.
Yet self-talk for reasoning/ thinking, relies on using many words that don’t have a visual cue associated with them.
So if a person is limited to self-talk thinking with words that have visual cues. It considerably restricts thinking.
For example, visual cues could be used to retrieve the words: I go to the shop.
But, when you are reasoning/ thinking about going to the shop. Words like: might go, could go, should go, can go, want to go, maybe go, etc.
Though these words dont have a visual cue to retrieve them for self-talk. Unless they are read.

Yet this equally applies to most sentences, where most words don’t have a visual cue. But even if they did have visual cues, perhaps you could consider how you would mental reasoning, not with self-talk, but a series of visual cues?
Though I understand your difficulty with explaining it to Michelle and asking her if she can use self-talk? Which is the question that the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America raised with me, in relation to young children?

But I was very interested in your rear view mirror experience. Which perhaps relates to published research by NASA, where they found that self-talk in fact triggers the head and throat muscles associated with producing the same words out loud.
Where I would suggest that Michelle has learnt to do this in reverse?
Where making the mouth movements of words, works as a cue to retrieve them for self-talk?
Perhaps you could use this as a way to explain self-talk to her?
Where you could ask her if when she does that ‘mouthing’, and not saying the words out loud. If she imagines the sound of the words in her mind?
It could be an easy way to explain self-talk to her?

Where in fact she might already be to able use self-talk, but just in a limited way?
In my research, in a majority of cases, it has turned out to be simply that a child didn’t know that most people hear the sound of words in their mind when they are thinking.
Afterall, no one ever told them about this?
With one exception, where many children have seen movies with a character with a mental illness, that causes them to ‘hear voices’?
So that they have an idea that self-talk is a mental illness!
Fortunately Visualisation hasn’t developed an association with people that suffer from hallucinations. But visualising is more commonly talked about, where everyone is familiar with being asked to ‘Picture something in their mind’.
Yet we don’t have an equivalent for ‘Hearing something in their mind’?
It’s a well kept secret?
Geoff,

Geoff,

When I’m alone with my thoughts, I have complete conversations with myself. (or daydreaming I’m talking with other people etc.).

Where my dd(and husband), when she is alone with her thoughts it’s all about pictures(movie) and feelings. If there is any talking going on, it usually has to do with an emotion (like a girl being mean on the basketball court).

I understand this is very common for ‘right’ brained people and dyslexics.

Is this what you are talking about?

When our SLP talked about self talk, I assumed that she meant talking things out in your head as you try to figure something out. I do the same thing in having conversations or thinking about things that I plan to say to someone, especially if I’m really mad at them (HAHA), but seriously, I think she meant (at least for Michelle) in terms of organizing her thoughts. Maybe like putting together a conversation or or in a task where you have to reason things out using logic? For example, when you are home and get hungry you start thinking “I’m hungry. I had lunch at 1pm and it’s now 5pm. It’s been 4 hours since I have eaten. What should I eat now? I should probably just make dinner because it’s getting close to dinner anyway. I wonder if the meat is thawed out?” etc…. I think that would be helpful to be able to think through things like that. I’m not sure if Michelle does that, except that sometimes she gets mad at my older daughter for whatever reason. I see her walk out of the room and go write her a note. Something like this “Kaitlyn, you’re not my sister anymore. Why did you yell at me?” etc…. The spelling might not be that good, but you get the idea. It’s short, but she does not say anything out loud, yet she goes and writes her a note, so she must have to put some thoughts together before doing that.

Anyway, it’s all very interesting. I am interested to see how the therapist will deal with this issue. I’ll be sure to let you know.

Kathryn

Hi Demarti,
Yes, that is what I’m talking about.
I’m the same as you, I have complete conversations with myself. Using mental ‘self-talk’.
I imagine that when you write a message here, that you use self-talk to rehearse each sentence in your mind, before you write it?
Though perhaps you could consider how you would go about writing a message, if you couldn’t use self-talk to rehearse it first?
It was actually discussions with parents of children with written expression difficulties, that caused me to consider whether these children hadn’t learnt to use self-talk? Where these same children also most often had speech difficulties.
Yet it is not that something prevents them from being able to use self-talk. Rather the way that they have learnt to use it.
Where they can retrieve words in response to mental pictures/ movies. But unable to use self-talk, without mental pictures/ movies.
So they are unable to have as you say a ‘complete conversation’ in their mind, unless it can be visualised as a movie?
But an important thing that I have found over the past 15 months that I’ve been researching this. Is that the common reason why they can’t use self-talk. Is simply that they didn’t know that most people use self-talk.
That whilst they are creating a mental movie in their mind, other people are creating a sound-track for the movie.
Where the main part of learning how to use self-talk. Is simply knowing about it.
Where as I said before, it is a well kept secret, that no one ever talks about? We hardly even have any words to define it, so far.
Perhaps you could talk to your DH and DD about it, and see what they think about making Sound-tracks to their mental Movies?
Geoff,

You wrote:
‘But an important thing that I have found over the past 15 months that I’ve been researching this. Is that the common reason why they can’t use self-talk. Is simply that they didn’t know that most people use self-talk.’

What I find interesting is that until several months ago, I never realized that there are people who don’t ‘daydream’ the same way I do? Where you have conversations with yourself!

I never even really thought to try to encourage my dd to try to put the ‘sound-track’ on with the movie or even trying to see if she can just listen to a conversation in her head w/o the picture going? I was more focused on understanding how she thinks.

So in reverse, I’m wondering if I can improve my creativity if I try to get the movie/picture going in my head. It’s really hard to do. I just keep talking to myself instead. LOL How do you get the voices to stop!

And how do you even ask a child who has a severe deficit in language skills, in particular abstract ideas, if she can do something like this? I know you think that an 8 yr old can do this type of thing, but she has a severe deficit when it comes to abstract ideas. I even think visualizing is a problem, so I’m not sure what is going on in her head if there are no pictures or words. I shouldn’t say that there are none, but they are probably related to facts that she knows and not ideas or manipulating information around.

When I try to solve a problem I try to think of a situation that was similar and then try to remember how I solved that problem (or how someone else solved it) and then figure out what is different and how I would do things differently to solve the current problem.

Maybe I can start by asking her about things she knows really well, like colors or of a story that she is familiar with.

Any ideas on how to get the self talk going would be great. I do think this will be part of her therapy once she gets started.

Kathryn

Demarti,
There is an interesting term that has come into usage recently: ‘Invisible Difficulties’, that refers to how we all think in ‘different ways’, but we never know how other people go about the task of thinking and processing information. We just assume that everyone thinks the same way ourself?
You asked about how do you get the movie going and stop the voices in your head?
Where the answer is to be so busy looking at the movie, that you dont have time to talk?
I have an exercise on my Dyscalculia Forum, to develop Visual-Spatial thinking that you could try?
Where you go shopping! In your mind?
You probably have a local super-market, that you are very familiar with? Where you know where to find everything that you usually buy.
So for the exercise, we are going to take a tour of all of aisles in shop.
So close your eyes and then picture what you see as you enter your super-market, then start looking to the left and right of you, as you move up the first aisle. Looking to see what is usually on the shelves or in the freezers.
Then turn into the next aisle and continue on throughout the shop. You might like to pause and have a closer look at things that you usually buy.
Where it is important to ‘look around’ as you go up the aisles.
Demarti, you might have found that you were so busy looking around the shop, that the ‘voices stopped’?
Where you just watching the movie.
Well, it seems that you just went to the super-market, watched a movie, and never spent a cent?
Geoff,

Hi Kathryn,
I can really appreciate the difficulty, where it’s a bit like asking a child that can only see in ‘black and white’, if they can see red and green?
Though from your previous postings, I would conclude that Michelle is able to effectively use visualising.
Whilst you write that she has a severe deficit when it comes to abstract ideas.
Then write about how you go through the process of ‘solving a problem’. No doubt you use self-talk as you go through the problem solving process.
Where I would suggest that self-talk is a basic tool for abstract thinking.
But, the most important question, as you write, is how do we ask Michelle if she can do something like this?
Where I wonder if Visualising could be the answer?
Asking her to ‘picture things in her mind’?
So that she understands the concept and ability to imagine something that we can ‘see’, in our mind.
Once this is fully understood, then the idea of imagining something that we ‘hear’ in our mind, could be introduced.
Which would then make more sense.

As to ‘how to get self talk going’?
It is not simply learning how to imagine the sound of words.
Their are 2 fundamental elements; Pitch and Rhythm.
Which can give a word different meanings, simply by changing the pitch and rhythm.
Just as it can change the meaning of a sentence.
From a statement to a question.
To develop a sense of pitch and rhythm in self-talk.
We have 2 important tools, called Rhymes and Songs.
Where lines of Rhymes and Songs can be used to practise self-talk.
Geoff,

Geoff - I was able to go shopping today and not spend a cent. Yes, I can ‘picture’ that. When I ‘nightdream’, I have the whole movie with sound going. It’s really only when I daydream that it’s mainly just me thinking about conversations with people.

I like the suggestion on the Rhyme and Song. I’m anxious to ask my dd if she can hear the words to a song in her head. She has commented before that a particular song is ‘stuck in her head’, but I’m now wondering if it includes the words to the song or just the melody? She is not a real music lover. Her brother got her an iPod and she never uses it. Doesn’t listen to music much. I’m wondering if this is part of why? The words maybe don’t connect with her?

I can see that practicing singing songs in your head may be good therapy.

Here is something interesting. Michelle takes a tap dance class. She loves it, by the way, so the teacher gave the kids the recital song on a CD so they could practice at home. She already had most of the routine down anyway, but we put the music on in the kitchen for her a few times so she could practice, but then I saw her doing it without the music so I said “What about the music?” She said “It’s in my head”. But like Demarti said, maybe it’s melody and not words. But even (at least for Michelle) if it was hearing the words to a song or remembering a conversation or something that is pure fact, you can recall something that someone said, but to actually talk to yourself and organize your thoughts in your head or reason through things is a whole other issue. Like I know she has a voice in her head, but whether she uses it to figure stuff out I don’t know and the SLP didn’t think so.

Also, she had a discrepency in one area of testing, which was in digit span vs. non-word repetition. So, the digit span test (as you know) the examiner says a series of numbers and she repeats them back. When it was just numbers she could hardly do any, but when the examiner had her tap her hands on the desk as she said them she was able to do a lot more. The non-word repition was different. She would say a non-word and she would repeat it back, but as the test went on the words got longer, just as the digit span got harder in that there were more numbers. I asked why she was able to remember the non-words better than the digits and she said it was the prosody, which I suspect is the rythmic sounds that you make when you say multisyllabic words (or non-words).

Michelle has a love of music and a great ear for melody. She can sing on key (well, as much as an 8 year old can), but most of the time I can tell what she is singing because of the melody. She said that Michelle could probably learn her math facts to music. I bet that’s true of most people, but anyway, something to think about. I did get the visual math set from City Creek and there are actual characters associated with the #s and stories for each pair of numers to learn the addition facts, like when the 2 six’s go to the beach they get sick from eating 12 donuts.

So, if she can hear the music in her head and she can hear a voice then she seems to have a lot going on, but I really don’t think she has the strategies to reason things out at this point, whether out loud or in her head. I mean, she has some strategies, but they are probably very simple at best.

Kathryn

Hi Kathryn,
Sorry for the delay in replying, but I’ve been giving some thought to your reply.
Where as you suggest, Michelle can use Auditory Recall to hear a melody and quite possibly the words in her mind.
Though it seems that she can only recall it as a ‘block’, where she replays in her mind the whole string of words, sequence, melody in her mind.
But cannot take individual words and create her own melody, sentence?
Your example of where she was able to recall more numbers when accompanied by ‘taps on the desk’, ‘rhythm, gave her greater recall.
Was most interesting.
Where I tempted to suggest that she needs to learn how to ‘deconstruct’ sound into smaller units.
Whilst most people ‘construct’ sound, into larger units.
Where she needs to learn how isolate and re-arrange elements within a melody?
To compose melodies and sentences?
Yet I particularly note Michelle’s ‘love of music and great ear for melody’, and being able to nearly ‘sing on key’.
As someone that plays Wind instruments, String Instruments and Keyboards. I have always wondered how Composers create musical compositions for Orchestras?
For most people they would start with one instrument, and then add further instruments to it.
But for a real Orchestral Composer, they begin by hearing in their mind, the ‘whole sound’. Which they then deconstruct into individual instruments.

Kathryn, given Michelle’s ‘love of music’, I would like to suggest that as Therapy, helping her to practise creating her own songs could be a real solution? Where she writes the words and creates the melody?
Which might seem a bit absurd, but in fact provides her with an opportunity to rehearse different ways of writing each line in the melody, in her mind.

In learning how to compose a song, it involves the same thinking skills involved with speech.

Geoff,

Interesting idea. You hit the nail on the head on one of your points. Michelle’s testing results showed that she is able to blend words together to make compound words and even to blend non-words up to an age equivalence of 13.6 (she is only 8). This is a strength. She is also able to blend sounds together to make words. I don’t recall if this was one of the tests, but for example, I can say f - l - a - p and she can come up with “flap” and so on. HOWEVER, when it came to taking words apart, she could only do so on the syllable level. That was the smallest segment she could break apart. She scored 100% on the test that said “Saw apartment. Now say apartment but don’t say ment” and the answer was “apart”. On the elision test where you say to her “say bold. Now say bold, but don’t say /b/” she could not do that at all. The comment from the examiner is “she is not auditorilly aware of the specific sounds within spoken words, but rather she perceives the word, or a syllable as a whole, which is why she is unable to break it into smaller parts”. Then in the next section she states “Michelle’s ability to store and repeat a series of numbers was in the low range, but her ability to recall nonsense words was in the average range. Her relative strength with the nonword task reflects her ability to code information phonologically for temporary storage in working memory. This ability is likely to be an asset in the decoding of new words, particularly wirds that are long enough to decode bit by bit, as a means of storing immediate sounds.” So, I think when you said that she can blend words together, but cannot take them apart rings true in this report. Not sure where I was going with this, but anyway, you get the idea.

I just want to know which part of all of this testing is affecting her ability to put grammatically correct sentences together.

Here is a writing sample, which is exactly how she talks as an 8 yr old. It’s her written work as she wrote it on a writing test, so maybe her oral language is slightly better, but it’s a fairly accurate representation of her oral language.

The Tide Pools
Me and my dad we.
Saw The sea star.
Becase It was.
Stiking I was brave.
That my dad take.
Pichrs becase.
Before I saw the.
Waves me and my.
Dad we saw a crab.
That was It.

Here is my translation taking out the extra words that do not belong and fixing the spelling and putting periods in the right places.

The Tide Pools
Me and my dad, we saw the sea star.
It was sticking.
I was brave.
My dad take pictures.
I saw the waves.
Me and my dad, we saw a crab.
That was it.

I did not fix the grammar of course, but just so you get the idea of what she was trying to say and how she actually says it.

Thanks again for reading and responding to my posts.

Kathryn

Hi Kathryn,
I’ve been giving some consideration to your last post, wondering what could be helpful?
How to put a grammatically correct sentence together?
How to practise doing that?

What I come back to, is Michelle’s ‘love of music’.
As I look at the writing example you posted.
I wonder how it would read if she had written the same thoughts, as the ‘lyrics’ of a song?
This might seem a bit odd, but perhaps you could ask her to write a short paragraph about something, like the one that you posted.
But this time, she writes it as the ‘words for a song’? Perhaps she might even associate some melody or rhythm with it? As she writes it.
Though I just noticed that I raised this in my last post.
But perhaps you could try this out with Michelle as a simple exercise?
Where she writes a short song about something?

I would be very interested to see if their is a notable difference in the way that she grammatically structures her sentences/ lines?
When she writes it as a song.

So perhaps you could try this out?
Song writing as therapy?
Do you or Michelle play a musical instrument?
Geoff,