Posted by Mia Moe on Fri, Mar 12, 2010 @ 02:34 PM
Mary Ann Bash is the director of Each One Teach One: No More Gap, a vocabulary and oral language intervention program for children 2-14 and their parents. The program engages students, parents, and community volunteers in fun, structured conversations with all students, including low-income, immigrant, gifted, and special-needs learners. For more information on Each One Teach One, visit www.eotonomoregap.com.
In my career as a teacher, administrator, and urban learning advocate, I have witnessed two events that rocked the world of early childhood education. I hope to witness a third.
The first event was in the mid nineties, when Drs. Betty Hart and Todd Risley published Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children. In this pioneering longitudinal study, Hart and Risley compiled and analyzed data on the home language environments of children across the socioeconomic spectrum, concluding that the number of words a child hears by age three has a significant impact on the future academic success of that child. Because of this study, early educators refer to the "30 million word gap by age 3" to emphasize the urgency for early intervention.
When explaining to parents the importance of their children's scores on the mandatory state accountability test, I often use the Hart and Risley findings with M.K. Smith's 1941 research study, "Measurement of the Size of General English Vocabulary Through the Elementary Grades and High School." This classic study found that "high knowledge third graders had vocabularies about equal to lowest-performing 12th graders" and that "high-school seniors near the top of their class knew about four times as many words as their lower-performing classmates." However, until recently parents had no practical means of measuring their children's language environment. That is until the second event struck. The LENA Foundation, also inspired by Hart and Risley's work, introduced the LENA (for "language environment analysis") System in 2006.
Now I can use the Hart and Risley study and Smith study to express the importance of developing extensive vocabularies and recommend that parents use the LENA System to monitor and augment their child's language development.
In my experience, the LENA System has proven a valuable tool in helping public schools engage low-income parent communities in their children's schooling. As director of Each One Teach One: No More Gap, an oral language intervention program, I had the opportunity to introduce LENA technology in preschool and kindergarten classrooms where more than 80 percent of the children are on free or reduced lunch and up to 60 percent of the students speak a language other than English at home.
Each day we would assign one child to wear a lightweight, unobtrusive LENA Digital Language Processor (DLP) for the entire school day, including after-school activities. Then we would hook the DLP up to our PC running the LENA software. With the comprehensive reports that the LENA System generated, we not only tracked the childrens' language development but also were able to alter our instructional methods to optimize learning for each child. For example, we were able to:
* Increase the number of conversational turns a child engaged in at school
* Learn of the differences during instruction in large groups and small groups in literacy and math
* Measure the effects of classroom and non-classroom-based activities
Perhaps most important, the LENA System enabled us to zero in on children who lacked verbal confidence and help empower them with a conversation-based intervention reflective of the intensive, highly verbal one-on-one interactions that Hart and Risley and the LENA Foundation recommend for accelerating language growth for children 2 months to 48 months of age.
LENA helped us empower low-income parents by showing them concrete evidence of how using Each One Teach One: No More Gap strategies with their children ages 2-14 significantly increased the amount of conversation they had with their children and the number of turns the child took in the conversation. In one instance, a mother was so excited by LENA that she convinced the manager of her subsidized housing complex to let me offer to use the LENA System and the Each One Teach One intervention program with each of the complex's 71 families.
With help from the technological advances made by the LENA Foundation and the ongoing success of Each One Teach One, I hope to witness a third great event - to see some of these children grow up to become the first in their families to attend college.
Posted by Mia Moe on Mon, Mar 08, 2010 @ 03:36 PM
Melanie Potock, M.A., CCC-SLP, explains how she's been using the new LENA Language Assessment to augment her treatment regimen and get more out of her workday.
LENA Language Assessment - an Innovative Way to Optimize Treatment and Boost Workday Productivity
Over the past 15 years, working in pediatric hospitals, schools, and homes, I have acquainted myself thoroughly with the time-consuming administrative tasks required of an SLP. For example, there are the insurance company constraints, the need to maintain funding sources, and the challenge of juggling multiple clients in an overbooked calendar.
Traditional evaluations have always been an important and necessary part of developing my treatment plan, but I often wished that I had a way of capturing a child's natural home language environment. Too often, gathering essential information on children's early language skills not only requires dedicating valuable treatment sessions to administering lengthy assessments, but also staying late at the office to score and analyze the data and write reports. Caught up in a whirlwind of tasks, I often had less time for what I needed to do - teach kids to talk.
I recently tried the new LENA Language Assessment from the LENA Foundation. It was quick and easy. The foundation sent my client's parents a packet with everything they needed and instructions on how to record their child's vocalizations in one 12-hour period. After recording their child's natural language environment, the parents dropped the assessment equipment in a prepaid envelope and mailed it to the foundation. Within three days, the foundation processed the data and sent me six reports, two assessments, and an audio sample from the child's recording.
When I opened up the LENA Language Assessment results packet, the first thing I saw was a cover sheet summarizing the recording session data; it was accompanied by color-coded graphs that provided easy-to-read data on adult words spoken, child vocalizations, conversational turns, and even how much TV or other electronic sounds were present throughout the recording day. Just by reading the summary, I was able to acquire a comprehensive understanding of the language environment in the child's home and preschool environments in less than a half hour of my typically hectic day. The recordings and reports provided unique data on two of my clients - the kind of data that I had previously been unable to acquire in a typical hour of therapy.
One three-year-old child's vocalizations were exceptionally high (in the 81st percentile) while his conversational turns were average (in the 52nd percentile). Adult words over the course of 12 hours were in the 40th percentile. Because the child had exhibited signs of periodic echolalia during our sessions, I suspected that the high incidence of vocalizations occurring outside the realm of turn taking indicated a high degree of non-interactive echolalia throughout the day. While reviewing the report with the child's family, we were able to freely discuss echolalia and how to address it outside the therapy setting.
The second client was a 2½-year-old toddler with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS). Like other children with CAS that I had treated, he had not been as verbal during my home visits as I had hoped, frequently relying on his mother's presence to cue him to talk. He had scored in the 37th percentile for vocalizations. I regretted that I had not used the LENA Language Assessment during his initial evaluation six months ago, when his mother reported limited vocalizations from her child. I can only deduce that the initial baseline scores for vocalizations would have been much lower. The comparison scores would have been ideal to demonstrate progress to an insurance company or other funding source.
Like many SLPs, I have filled an entire shelf with my favorite assessment tools, each of which has its own purpose and demands on my time. Some are for initial evaluations. Some are for periodic rechecks. Some are for final evaluations that I often use to support recommendations for discharging a client. Now I have a new favorite.
Innovative and practical, the new LENA Language Assessment is the only evaluation tool that I am aware of that gathers 12 hours of data and provides rapid feedback on language development; yet it takes very little time away from my treatment sessions and workday. I can use the assessment to provide feedback immediately on how parents can improve their child's language development. At last, an efficient, reliable, and effective means to report a child's progress without taking time away from precious therapy sessions - the LENA Language Assessment. I am suggesting to all of my colleagues that they give it a go.
To view LENA Language and Autism Screen sample reports - click here.
Posted by Mia Moe on Thu, Mar 04, 2010 @ 03:46 PM
Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, Ph.D., CCC-A, Professor, Dept. of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at University of Colorado, Boulder, talks about the LENA Pro system's potential to help discover new treatments for infants and children who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Imagine the Possibilities
How LENA Pro could transform research and clinical treatment of children who are deaf or hard of hearing
LENA Pro has the ability to revolutionize the way that we chart the developmental language progress of children with hearing loss. The system provides language environment analysis data that would be almost impossible to acquire without significant financial resources for recording, transcription, and coding analysis. With this unique speech recognition tool, speech language professionals and families of children with hearing loss have the opportunity to access feedback on spoken language use and language environment almost immediately.
This is a welcome improvement over the recent past, when teachers, interventional specialists, and habilitation and rehabilitation providers were never quite sure whether the strategies they were teaching or recommending were actually being generalized into everyday life. Moreover, the reports and data generated from the LENA recordings provide speech language professionals and parents with access to the concise information that they need to custom tailor their treatment efforts.
Furthermore, the research tools in LENA Pro allow us to estimate how much language the child with a hearing loss is exposed to within the daily language environment. We can compare this information with the estimated language access of a child with normal hearing at the same age level. The device also enables us to look at the child's conversational turns and the adult's conversational turns and to identify times and/or activities during the day that facilitate the best language interactions. In-depth analysis of these interactions is now possible by combining the computer analysis with traditional - but time- and personnel-intensive - language sampling procedures.
With LENA Pro, we now have technology that will help us figure out what is working and what is not. And this level of insight is bound to open new doors for research and clinical practice.
Posted by Mia Moe on Mon, Mar 01, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
Joanne Baum, Ph.D. authored the IPPY Gold Medal Award winning parenting book, Got the Baby Where's the Manual?!? Respectful Parenting from Birth Through the Terrific Twos. She's been a therapist, parent coach, trainer, and educator for over 30 years. Her private practice is based in Evergreen, CO. Visit the Respectful Parenting website.
Q:
How can I engage with my twins more and increase my word counts? There doesn't seem to be enough energy or hours in a day!
A:
Twins certainly have their own set of challenges. How do you give two children simultaneous, individual interactions? Perhaps the sum of three individuals can add up to more than 1 plus 1 plus 1.
But in order for that to happen I think you need an activity that all three of you can focus on. That way you can interact with each child, reinforcing their unique interaction with the activity or environment you're experiencing at the time. Using an activity like reading or a "nature walk" to stimulate the interactions can help tremendously.
I can remember wanting to go on a walk with my son when he was a toddler and even up to about five years old. In my mind a walk is close to a hike - a fast clip, nice views (if possible), and a good distance. With a young child I had to modify my own expectations. If we accomplished a block or two at best we were lucky. But we made that block a rich experience. We could talk about everything we saw along the way - from cigarette butts to blossoms, snowflakes, sticks, gum wrappers, new grass, pretty leaves, or flowers. When you get to your child's level, slow down your adult expectations, watch in awe of how each of your children's minds are working, and then talk to each child's separate experience and get them interacting with each other as well. The trick is being in awe of each child. Really watch those gears turn and be in awe of what they find along the path or what they want to focus on or comment on. Watch an army of ants crawling and carrying things. Marvel with your child.
Awe leads you into marveling like a child, and that in turn leads you into a complex and respectful discussion. Then 1 + 1 + 1 will equal lots of Conversational Turns and interactions.
Posted by Mia Moe on Fri, Feb 26, 2010 @ 10:10 AM
ScienceDaily (Feb. 22, 2010) - Poring over the works of Dr. Seuss, the adventures of the Bernstain Bears or exploring the worlds of Hans Christian Andersen with a child has always been a great parent-child bonding exercise.
But, according to George Georgiou, a University of Alberta professor in educational psychology, it is instrumental for English-speaking children if they are to acquire the language skills, particularly comprehension, essential to their future reading ability.
Georgiou and his colleagues recently published a study in Learning and Instruction examining the cognitive and non-cognitive factors that may predict future reading ability in English and Greek. Since the study was published, Georgiou has expanded his research to Finland and China, with the same outcomes.
He says the home literacy environment-what parents do at home in terms of literacy-and motivation predict children's various initial literacy skills, such as letter knowledge and vocabulary, differently across languages. These skills, in turn, ultimately predict future reading ability.
Studying language for success
Orthography is the part of the study of language dealing with letters and spelling. Georgiou points out that English is an orthographically inconsistent language; in other words, letters can have more than one sound each. Because of this, he says, children learning English "need someone to show them the letters, teach them the letter sounds, play with letter magnets on the fridge.
"We have found that in English, you need a rich home literacy environment. It's absolutely necessary," he says.
But that's not the case in other languages. Georgiou notes that students are able to learn to read faster in languages such as Greek and Finnish, because there is one-to-one correspondence between a letter and its sounds. This difference with English, he says, implies that Greek or Finnish parents do not need to read as frequently to their children to give them an edge on learning the language. Simply put, Greek or Finnish children will eventually learn to read regardless of how rich the home literacy environment may be.
"In Greece, parents intuitively know that as soon as a child goes to school, within three months, unless there are some severe situations that may interfere with learning, that child will be able to learn to read," said Georgiou. "Alternatively, in English, having someone read to you frequently as a child-explaining what the meaning of words are and playing around with the letters-makes a big difference as to whether you will become a good reader."
English-languages challenges for students
Without that learning support and because of the inconsistencies of English orthography, English-speaking children run the risk of falling behind at least two years in terms of their reading skill when compared to children learning to read in languages with a direct relationship between letters and sounds, he said. But, if mom and dad don't have the time to invest in reading to their children and still want them to succeed with language development, then educational programs, such as Sesame Street, and multimedia tools, such as spelling programs or games, may be an alternative.
Georgiou also lauds the efforts of communities in getting behind literacy programs and encouraging the development of literacy skills through initiatives such as "raise a reader" and "read-in week." He says that these types of programs pay dividends because they are a key component in motivating children to appreciate and embrace reading as a worthwhile activity.
There are key elements Canadian parents should focus on to promote the success of their children as active readers, he says. Foremost, reading to your children is vital, as is specific exercises and games to teach them letter names and sounds. Finally, having role models as a motivation to read, whether it be an NHL player reading to a classroom full of kids or a parent at bedtime, is also highly important, says Georgiou.
"Build their motivation. If your child sees you reading at home, that sends a message to that child that you value reading."
For tips and resources for enhancing your child's langauge environment and development - visit - lenababy.com.
Posted by Mia Moe on Wed, Feb 24, 2010 @ 02:34 PM
Dr. Judy K. Montgomery, CCC-SLP, is a Professor of Special Education and Literacy at Chapman University. She served as the President of ASHA in 1995, and the president of the CEC Division of Communication Disorders and Deafness in 2004 - 2005.
LENA
Q:
My 15 month old daughter doesn't speak as much as my friends' children. How can I encourage her to speak more? And what should I look for in her that prompts me to visit a speech specialist?
A:
There are things parents can do to increase speech and language skills of young children. For example, speaking to your child face to face, calmly, in a fairly quiet environment, and using lots of gestures with your speech. Also, use "self-talk" which is talking about what you're doing. It's also very important to read to your child often. For more talking tips visit: LENA Baby resources.
When dealing with language delay, early intervention is key. Here are some warning signs to look for that may suggest your child has a speech delay:
* Poor eye contact from child most of the time
* Child doesn't watch your face when you talk
* Child gets anxious when others talk
* Child doesn't use sounds or words to get his needs met
When to see a Speech Language Pathologist:
* If child is talking but cannot be understood by unfamiliar adults
* If child has few or no words after 18 months of age
* If child appears to understand, but does not speak, only points
* If child suddenly stops talking after normal speech development
* If child is quickly frustrated or angry when not understood
* If child appears not to be interested in talking.
Posted by Mia Moe on Tue, Feb 23, 2010 @ 02:40 PM
Susan Oakes, M.L.S. has been involved in public education for over 30 years. She created and coordinated the early childhood literacy program at the Arapahoe Library District, which has been running for almost 9 years. She is also the Read Aloud Program Coordinator for the Denver Public Library.
Q:
Does reading aloud help children become better readers?
A:
Yes!! You can incorporate these six skills while reading aloud to your children:
Print Motivation: Share your love of books and reading - it will be contagious for your children; always read books that you enjoy.
Print Awareness: Point out signs wherever you are; run your finger under the title as you read it; have your child turn the pages of the book; babies will put books in their mouths - choose board books that you can wipe clean.
Vocabulary: Books offer so many opportunities for adding rich vocabulary to your child's word bank. Nonfiction books contain words we don't often use in normal conversation.
Narrative Skills: Help your child to become the storyteller - focus on the beginning, middle, and end of a story; or the beginning, problem, and resolution in others. Have them say phrases that are repeated in a story; telling a family story is another good way to encourage your child to tell stories.
Phonological Awareness: Recognizing rhymes in words develops by age four; reading simple poetry and funny books with rhyme helps your child to hear the rhyming patterns of words.
Letter Knowledge: Children learn alphabet letters in different ways: start with your child's name; learning about shapes helps with discrimination of letter shapes. Help them to draw letters in the air; make them out of play dough. Fill a pan with corn meal and write the letters with their pointer finger. Always make the sound of the letter as well as saying the name of it.
The most important thing to remember is to have FUN! If you are having fun, so will your child.
Research has shown that the richer the language environment (more adult words, conversational turns), the better children do academically later in life. Measure your child's expressive and receptive langauge growth with the Developmental Snapshot. This easy tool allows parents to track their child's growth from 2-36 months!
Posted by Mia Moe on Wed, Feb 10, 2010 @ 09:28 AM
D. Kimbrough Oller, Ph.D., Professor and Plough Chair of Excellence, School of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Memphis.
The LENA System makes day-long, high fidelity recording possible and practical for the first time.
As a result, the naturalistic environment of infants and children can now be assessed with enormous new breadth of perspective. I find both recording and processing of recorded files on my laptop computer to be easy and convenient. But much more, the software developments that are made available with LENA provide an automated window into features of the language environment that are otherwise extremely difficult or impossible to evaluate.
LENA provides excellent measures of the amount of adult speech in the child's vicinity, amount of child vocalization and of conversational turns, but in addition, the freeware ADEX makes it possible to extract many additional pieces of information, such as who initiated conversations and how long their utterances were in various circumstances.
The LENA Reports provide outstanding conveniences in terms of locating utterances in representative and/or high vocal activity periods so that listening or transcription can be focused to the specific needs of the researcher or clinician. This naturalistic recording and automated approach makes truly representative evaluation possible for the first time. The research produced through LENA has turned me around - I have previously conducted my empirical work on infant vocalization using laboratory measures and small samples. Now we can also direct our attention to enormous naturalistic samples with powerful new statistical tools to enhance perspectives on development and communication disorders.
To view a demo of the LENA System - click here.
Posted by Mia Moe on Mon, Feb 08, 2010 @ 10:04 AM
Steven F. Warren directs both the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies and the Kansas Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center.
Q: Does a language delay mean my child will be slow for the rest of his or her life?
A:Not necessarily. There are many different causes of language delays. Many of these result in transitory problems that resolve during the first few years of life with or without direct treatment. Other delays disappear as a result of early intervention, and still others may persist for years or beyond. Perhaps the single most important thing that will benefit all children, whether they are typically developing or have a delay, is the long term engagement for many hours every day in an environment rich in social language interaction, reading, and other stimulating and challenging activities.
Did you know, children with higher IQ's hear more words per day? Parents saw a 33% increase in the amount of words their child hears when they used the LENA System.
"I was shocked at how little I talked to my baby. I'm a communicative person and I like to talk. You really don't know how little you talk to your baby, and LENA was a huge help to know where my starting point was. Now, when my husband reads the newspaper, he tells Brian more things that he will do during the day. We both changed, and we talk more about things. It was a huge help to know where my starting point was. LENA helps you to be conscious about how much you talk to your baby."
- Monika, mother of Brian,
Fort Worth, TX
For more resources on how to increase your child's langauge development - click here.
Posted by Mia Moe on Fri, Feb 05, 2010 @ 09:41 AM
Dr. Khanh-Van Le-Bucklin is the Director of the Pediatric Residency Program at the University of California, Irvine. She received her medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco and completed her residency at Stanford University.
Q:
My daughter has shown a very unique interest in colors, more so than my other children. Would you suggest letting her use painting computer games or should I let her run loose with her own paints? She is young and I worry she will try to eat the paints!
A:
Painting provides a unique opportunity for children to develop their motor skills, creative abilities, and language capacity. Here are some tips for making the experience safe, fun, and educational:
1. Let your child actively paint with you rather than use a computer painting game. Computer games cannot offer the rich educational experience that you can provide.
2. Use nontoxic paints. I like to paint with nontoxic watercolors or water-based, non-toxic acrylic paints.
3. If your child is too young to use a brush, I recommend nontoxic finger paints.
To maximize Adult Word Counts, Conversational Turns and your child's language potential, here are some ideas:
1. Talk about objects with the same color as the paint being used. "I'm painting with green. Grass is green. Leaves are green. Your eyes are green."
2. Talk about what you and your child are painting. For example, "Right now, I'm painting a circle. I'm going to make this circle into a flower." "Can you tell me about your painting?" If your child is preverbal, you can say something like, "Wow! That's a lovely painting! I like the orange squiggle you made with your finger here."
3. You can share your feelings about the experience. "I love to paint flowers. Flowers are so pretty and full of life." "I'm having a great time painting with you. Let's do this again next week."
Now grab some paints, let your creative energy flow, and talk, talk, talk! These precious moments with your child will produce lasting developmental and bonding effects that will endure long after the activity is over and the paint on your canvas has dried.