Communication Disorders

“Communication disorders” refers to difficulties with the transfer of knowledge, ideas, opinions, and feelings (p. 69).

Types:

• Speech disorders: Difficulty with the verbal means of communication
• Articulation disorders: Difficulty producing sounds – substitutions, omissions, addition, and distortions
• Voice disorders: Relate to quality of voice – quality (hoarse, breathy, hypernasal/hyponasal), pitch (high/low, monotone), and intensity (loud/soft)
• Fluency disorders: Difficulty with rate and flow of speech (i.e. stuttering)
• Language disorders
• Comprehension/Receptive language disorder: Difficulty understanding what is being communicated
• Production/Expressive language disorder: Difficulty conveying intended messages (i.e. word retrieval problems)

Tendencies:

Students with receptive language disorders may have difficulty understanding the meaning of concepts, relationships between concepts, humor and figurative language, multiple meanings, less common verb tenses, and compound or complex sentences.  They may also have difficulties following directions, and knowing when they don’t understand something.

Students with expressive language disorders may have difficulty using correct grammar and compound or complex sentences.  They may be unable to think of the right word to convey what they want (word retrieval), and have difficulty discussing abstract concepts.  They may not provide enough information to listeners (like not defining pronouns), and may have trouble maintaining the same topic during a conversation, and may be unable to clarify their meanings when not initially understood.

Accommodations:

• Speech
• Accommodations for speech disorders are typically provided by the SLP.
• Develop cueing system with students who have difficulty responding in a large group to let you know, discreetly, when they feel confident enough to respond.
• Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).
• Create an environment that students feel is safe in which to practice oral communication.
• Language
• Teach language in purposeful contexts – i.e. role-plays.
• Teach comprehension and production – use the pause procedure (pause at logical breaks in lecture or discussion, and have students discuss what they are learning in partners or small groups.
• Use effective teaching strategies when presenting new concepts (see page 87).
• Help students see the connections or relationships among concepts – feature analysis, concept maps, semantic maps, other graphic organizers; compare/contrast new with old words.
• Use conversation as the major milieu for teaching rather than questions or drill and practice – see Tips for Teachers, page 88.
• Give wait time (particularly for word retrieval problems).  Also, use multiple-choice instead of free response, provide a cue for the word, or restate questions so that they require yes/no responses.
• Adjust the pace, chunk information, and check for understanding.
• Use self-talk to explain what you are doing or thinking.
• Use parallel talk to describe what others are doing.
• Use modeling to help students get practice and feedback on a specific language skill – like teaching students how and when to ask for clarification when they don’t understand what’s being communicated.
• Use expansion and elaboration (commenting on what is said, providing additional information and asking questions to tease out more information) demonstrate how an idea can be expressed in a more complex or mature manner, and provide more information.
• Use language as an intrinsic motivator – i.e. avoid saying “good job” about what a kid says.