Thoughts of a secondary school SLT

Tag: SALT

  • Language assessment at secondary school: challenges and solutions

    Assessment can be challenging at any age, but especially so at secondary school level and beyond. Compared to the early years, language growth during older childhood and adolescence is “gradual and protracted” (Nippold, 1998, p.3). It also becomes increasingly individualistic, as students choose their GCSE subjects, take up hobbies and learn new vocabulary related to their interests. This makes it harder to say what “normal” language development looks like, and to identify when there is a problem.

    Despite a growing body of research, there are still fewer assessments for this age group than there are for younger children. Marylin Nippold (1998), a leading expert in adolescent language development has argued extensively that many standardized language assessments designed for teenagers actually assess more basic, foundational skills, and fail to measure more advanced, age-appropriate skills.

    For example, these tests may assess basic sentence structures and core vocabulary, when these skills are typically mastered several years before. On the other hand, important aspects of adolescent language development such as figurative language, understanding and production of a range of advanced syntactic structures, as well as relevant discourse types, such as expository discourse, may not be covered.

    This is likely to lead to the identification of only the most severe and obvious language disorders, whilst more subtle difficulties are missed. In other words, it is quite possible for a student with a language disorder to attain an average score on a formal language assessment.

    You are likely to come across students with a wide range of difficulties at secondary school. Some will continue to display obvious oral language difficulties. But many will have “outgrown” these, only for difficulties with more complex written language or pragmatics to come to the fore. Though subtle, such difficulties still have a considerable impact on classroom learning and social functioning. Yet, they are likely to be missed if standardised assessments are relied on exclusively.

    Done well, assessment at secondary level also requires more from us, as Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs), in terms of our linguistic knowledge. Nippold (2023) points out that many of us are less familiar with the details of later language development, or what to expect at different ages. Yet, if we are to say with confidence which students have language disorders and which do not, then we will need a robust understanding of advanced syntax, including later-developing syntactic structures, such as passives, adverbial clauses and clefts.

    Finding solutions

    There is far too much to say about assessment to fit into one blog post. For more comprehensive accounts, please see Nelson (1998), Larson and McKinley (2003) or Paul and Norbury (2012). The latter very helpfully split language development into four distinct developmental stages: emerging language, developing language, language for learning and advanced language.

    Students with language disorders may well be at stages typically associated with younger children. In my experience, many of my Year 7 and 8 students have been at the “Language for Learning” level typically associated with the older years of primary school. Some of my older ones, and those with more subtle difficulties have been at the “Advanced Language” stage. Meanwhile, a few have had “Developing Language”, normally associated with children aged 2 to 5.

    The  authors provide detailed advice for assessing students at each stage across a whole range of areas, from the “literate” lexicon and figurative language, to comprehension and production of syntax, different types of discourse, pragmatics and the “metas”. Given this wealth of available  information, I just wanted to share a few ideas that I’ve found most useful in my everyday practice. I also try to keep in mind Larson and McKinley’s (2003, p.179) philosophy that assessment should be “descriptive/ explanatory, authentic, dynamic, student-centred, and multidimensional”.

    Despite the criticisms of standardised assessments already mentioned, they can still yield some useful information, and provide a helpful starting point. Importantly, they are often required for determining eligibility for funding and support. Comprehensive test batteries such as the CELF-5 (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals), also provide an efficient way of uncovering any glaring difficulties across a wide range of areas. Such difficulties can then be investigated further, and supplemented by informal assessment tasks.

    Student-focused assessment

    You are likely to be familiar with a number of informal assessment measures already used routinely with other client groups, such as client, parent and teacher interviews, as well as classroom observations. One tool I have found particularly useful is a self-assessment checklist sourced from Paul and Norbury (2012, p.541), which I use as the basis for a student interview.

    This assessment lists a number of skills relevant for accessing the secondary school curriculum in a table. It includes items such as “understanding teachers’ lectures”, “finding main ideas in textbooks”, “participating in class discussions”, “taking notes” and “finding time to finish my work”. Students are asked to rate themselves on these skills, ticking either, “I’m good”, “I’m ok”, “I get by”, “I need some help” or “Aah! Help! Help!” (Paul and Norbury, 2012, p.541).

    I have found this to be an invaluable tool for gaining an insight into my students’ understanding of their own difficulties. The checklist can then be compared with their teachers’ views, as well as any formal test scores. Any areas of difficulty can be explored further by getting students to give examples and tell stories of times when they struggled with those specific behaviours. This is often incredibly revealing.

    I have found that beginning the assessment with this checklist also helps to motivate my students, since its relevance to their daily lives is immediately clear. In terms of motivation, Scott and Balthazar (2013) also recommend explaining to your students what you are going to assess, as well as why and how, rather than simply administering the test without explanation.

    You might be surprised at what a difference this student-focused approach can make. I began doing this in earnest a few years ago. Rather than giving a generic explanation, I would refer back to their checklist, saying things like, “You told me that you need a lot of help with understanding your teacher’s lectures. Well, this test looks at your listening skills. It will help me to understand why you are finding your teacher’s lectures hard.”

    There was a noticeable difference in my students’ motivation when I did this: both during the assessment and beyond. I think they could see how the assessment was relevant to the very real difficulties they were experiencing, and why it was important they try their best.

    Dynamic Assessment

    Something else you are likely to be aware of but is still worth mentioning is dynamic assessment. Less a type of test than a philosophy, it is based on Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development: the gap between what a learner can accomplish on her own and what she can do with support.

    So whilst traditional assessments do not allow examiners to provide any support (as this would invalidate the standardised scores), dynamic assessment is an interactive process between learner and instructor, focusing on the learning process, rather than the product. The idea is to support learners to complete a given task by teaching strategies, providing modelling and scaffolding that enable them to achieve more than they could alone. A test-teach-retest structure may be used, or it can be less formal than this.

    Dynamic assessment allows us a deeper insight into our students’ learning processes than a traditional test does. It helps us to understand how our students may respond to intervention and the types of strategies that are likely to help them.

    It is very possible to use the approach alongside a formal assessment to gather qualitative information once standardised scores have been computed. When I worked for the NHS, we regularly used it alongside the CELF-5 to work out which strategies most helped particular students. These would then be compiled into lists to be passed onto the teaching staff supporting those students.

    It can also be useful for determining the exact nature of a student’s difficulties when a task relies on a wide range of skills. A poor score on the Understanding Spoken Paragraphs subtest of the CELF-5, for example, may indicate a difficulty with focusing, auditory memory, vocabulary, understanding of sentence structures or text cohesion devices, or higher level skills such as prediction and inferencing.

    Simply computing the student’s scores according to the test manual will give me limited insight into their unique difficulties. But if we read the paragraphs again together, if I probe difficult vocabulary, ask them to paraphrase complex sentences, and rephrase tricky sentences myself as well as asking them what they found difficult about it, then I will get a much better idea.

    Curriculum-Based Language Assessment (CBLA)

    Standardised assessments have also been critiqued for being “decontextualized” and disconnected from real-life language demands. They give us little information about how students process increasingly complex academic language, or how to plan intervention (Nippold, 2023).

    One potential solution to these problems is CBLA. Pioneered by Nikola Wolf Nelson in the 1980s and 90s, generic curriculum-based assessment (CBA) approaches are adapted to focus more specifically on language. So whilst CBA tasks are often constructed by teachers to test how well a student is learning the course content and whether there are any problems, CBLA assesses whether they have the language skills to do so.

    More specifically, CBLA aims to identify the language demands of the school curriculum by using content and materials drawn directly from it. At the same time, it seeks to understand how well a student is using their linguistic knowledge, skills and strategies to access that content (Nelson, 1998). Any mismatch can be used for determining a student’s intervention needs.

    CBLA may involve collecting several types of data, including artifact analysis, classroom observations and participant observations (Nelson, 1998). The former has sometimes been referred to as “portfolio analysis”, since it involves gathering together a “portfolio” of the student’s work.

    This might include lecture notes, classwork, completed projects and written assignments. Students’ work could be analysed for use of vocabulary, sentence structures and organisation, and compared to that of students who are not struggling. Written instructions could also be analysed for complex vocabulary and sentence structures. This “portfolio” of pieces can even be kept as a way of measuring progress later on.

    A lesser known version of a classroom observation is called a “participant observation”. Both involve observing the student. But whilst a classroom observation involves watching from afar, in participant observation, the assessor sits beside the student as they attempt a curriculum task. They act as “co-conspirator” (Nelson, 1998, p402) and attempt to work out the problem with the student.

    A kind of dynamic assessment, participant observation allows the instructor to see at close hand how the student attempts the task. What are the linguistic demands? Are there difficulties with any words or sentences? Is the student using any strategies? What other obstacles come up? Such an activity could easily take place in an isolated clinic room if embarrassment is a factor. You could even ask their teacher for the classwork they would miss by coming to your session, and complete it together.

    Language sampling

    Another difficulty involved in identifying expressive language disorders at secondary school level is that they tend to be more hidden. Even struggling students tend to make fewer overt grammatical errors as they get older (Nelson, 1998). Instead, they are likely to produce utterances that are shorter and simpler for their age, they may struggle with organising their thoughts and generating ideas (Nippold, 1998, Paul & Norbury, 2012).

    For this reason, many experts advocate carrying out language sampling. Marylin Nippold, for example, recommends taking both a conversational and an expository sample (Nippold, 2023), such as explaining a favourite game. This is because sentence length and complexity vary a lot depending on the context and discourse type (Nippold et al, 2005).

    These samples can then be transcribed, analysed and compared to norms. Sentence length and complexity can be assessed with measures such as the mean length of communication unit (MLCU) and clausal density (CD), which is the average number of clauses per sentence. The different types of sentences used could be noted, and attention paid to any lower frequency, later developing structures. Lexical development and diversity could be measured by looking at the number of different words (NDW). Finally, the proportion of maze words can give an idea of the level of dysfluency (Nippold, 2023, p.3).

    Marilyn Nippold (2023) acknowledges that language sampling may feel daunting to many SLTs who worry about the time it will take, and whether they have the linguistic knowledge to confidently analyse such samples. She recommends a computer program called SALT (Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts) for the purpose, since it automatically analyses speech samples once transcribed.

    I have also personally found that even taking a short written sample can be quite revealing of a student’s difficulties: their ability to plan, generate ideas and organise them into paragraphs, as well as the types of sentence structures and vocabulary they are using.

    Assessing comprehension

    Assessing comprehension is arguably even more challenging than assessing expressive language, since it is even more “hidden”. Whilst some standardised assessments do include tests of receptive syntax, these tend to be quite basic. They are unlikely to cover a wide range of later developing structures.

    One very useful way of assessing understanding of different types of sentence structures is with a grammaticality judgment task. This simple task involves giving students a list of sentences, and asking them whether they make grammatical sense or not. One of the benefits of assessing older students is that most will have developed the “meta-skills” to engage with a task like this.

    Paul and Norbury (2012) suggested showing students pictures of an “OK lady” and a “silly lady”, and proceeding to ask them to tell if the sentence was “OK” or “silly” by pointing to the corresponding picture. With this age group, I have found that simply asking students to put a tick by the sentences that make sense and a cross by the ones that don’t suffices.

    An alternative to this is to read/ show students a sentence, and then ask them a direct question about it. An example that tests understanding of relative clauses might be: “The journalist who interviewed the teacher ate his lunch. Who ate his lunch – the journalist or the teacher?”

    A student who answers “the teacher” may be relying on an immature comprehension strategy of assigning the verb to the nearest noun (“the teacher ate his lunch…”), and does not appear to have developed the ability to extract meaning from this syntactic structure alone. Grammaticality judgment tasks can be used to assess any number of sentence types or structures that you suspect may be a problem, such as passive sentences, nominal clauses or clefts.

    Another simple but very effective way of finding out how much a student is understanding of a text is to ask them to paraphrase, one sentence at a time. We could also ask to hear their thoughts using a “think aloud” approach. After the instructor has modelled their own thought processes as they attempt to understand a text, the student is encouraged to do so. This way, we are able to see exactly where any breakdowns in comprehension occur, and whether the student is employing any particular strategies.

    Other assessments

    One final point to add is that in recent years, a few really helpful assessments aimed at this age group have been published. For example, Language for Behaviour and Emotions (LFBE) is a comprehensive toolkit created by Anna Branagan, Melanie Cross and Stephen Parsons in 2020, using the principles of dynamic assessment to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses.

    Helpfully, it includes assessment of some later-developing, age-appropriate skills such as figurative language and higher order thinking skills which are not typically covered by standardised assessments, as we have seen. For example, knowledge of idioms, as well as vocabulary related to behaviour and emotions are tested. Higher order thinking skills including prediction, inference and ability to retell a story are also targeted in their scenario-based assessment and program.

    Final thoughts

    With all these things to keep in mind, assessment of secondary school students may feel daunting. But many experts now agree that assessment should be thought of as an ongoing process, rather than as something that must be “complete” before intervention can begin (Nelson, 1998, Larson and McKinley, 2003, Paul and Norbury, 2012, Scott and Balthazar, 2013). Thought of this way, we only need to gather enough information about a student’s difficulties to make a start and decide on priorities.

    This is what I now choose to do, although I have experienced both extremes in the past. Working at my first school with around 100 students on my caseload, I carried out brief “screenings”, using just three or four subtests from the CELF-4 as the basis for identifying their difficulties and setting targets. To be honest, this did not feel like enough information to go on.

    On the other hand, when I worked for the NHS, assessment was much more comprehensive, sometimes taking as long as three to four sessions. However, the goal was different: many of these students would not be seen for direct therapy, or they might only receive a few sessions with me. Instead, the aim was to gather enough information to pass on to the staff supporting them.

    At my current school, where I am fortunate enough to see students 1:1 or in small groups on an ongoing basis, my assessments usually take place over a couple of sessions. I begin by interviewing them about their difficulties and getting them to tell me their “stories”. I tend to carry out some core subtests from the CELF-5, and perhaps others based on the reasons they were referred. Using dynamic assessment alongside usually gives me a solid place to start. Alternatively, I might use the scenario-based assessment from the LFBE toolkit.

    As we continue working together and I find I need more information, I might speak to their teachers to see how things are going in class, carry out a grammaticality judgment task to assess their understanding of certain sentence structures, or use the “Crazy Phrases” test from the LBFE toolkit to assess their knowledge of idioms and non-literal language.

    Once more obvious oral language difficulties have been resolved, I might take a sample of written language, or ask to see some of their classwork or assignments, perhaps even attempting some tasks together in a participant observation. My practice is by no means perfect. But I hope that some of these ideas resonate, and that this snapshot into my daily practice gives a useful insight into assessment at secondary level.

    Notes

    Larson, V.L. and McKinley, N.L. (2003) Communication solutions for older students. Thinking Pub. 

    Loban, W. (1976) Language Development: Kindergarten through Grade Twelve. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

    Nelson, N. W. (1998) Childhood Language Disorders in Context: Infancy Through Adolescence. 2nd edn. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

    Nippold, M.A. (1998) Later language development: The school-age and adolescent years. 2nd ed. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

    Nippold, M.A. (2023). Grammar guide for speech-language pathologists: Steps to analyzing complex syntax. San Diego: Plural Publishing.

    Nippold, Marilyn A., Linda J. Hesketh, Jill K. Duthie, and Tracy C. Mansfield. “Conversational Versus Expository Discourse: A Study of Syntactic Development in Children, Adolescents, and Adults.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 48, no. 5 (2005): 1048–1064. doi.org.

    Paul, R. and Norbury, C. (2012) Language Disorders from Infancy Through Adolescence: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Communicating. 4th edn. St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.

    Scott, Cheryl M., and Catherine H. Balthazar. 2013. “The Role of Complex Sentence Knowledge in Children with Reading and Writing Difficulties.” Perspectives on Language and Literacy 39 (3): 18–30. [1, 2]

  • Difficulties with text cohesion: Why some students struggle to understand connected text

    Some time ago I was asked to assess a new student who was having trouble at school. He misbehaved in all his lessons and was rude to his teachers, meaning that he spent most of his time in detention. Fortunately, staff members wondered if he might have some undiagnosed difficulties that were causing him to act in this way, so he was referred for a Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) assessment with me.

    Contrary to the reports I had heard, he was kind and polite one to one, even wishing me a good day at the end of the assessment. But the interview was illuminating. When we talked about how school was going, he told me that he understood “nothing” in his lessons, so there was “no point” in behaving.

    I suspected a language disorder, so used the CELF-5 (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals) standardized assessment to find out more. As expected, he had mild difficulties across a range of areas such as vocabulary and ability to follow instructions. But most concerning was his performance on the Understanding Spoken Paragraphs subtest, when he answered only one question correctly.

    The task involves the assessor reading several short paragraphs aloud before asking students questions about them. I like to use it because I think it reflects quite well how much a child may understand in class, but the skills it assesses are quite broad. A low score might indicate difficulties in a number of areas such as with paying attention, auditory memory, vocabulary knowledge, understanding of sentence structures as well as ability to predict and infer.

    As I tried to delve deeper, we read the paragraphs again and I asked my student to paraphrase some of the sentences. To my surprise, his sentence level understanding was not bad. Yet he still struggled to say what the paragraph was about, and to answer the text-level questions. What he appeared to be struggling with was understanding how the sentences hung together as a whole, to form a “text”.

    As Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs), we are used to supporting our students with some aspects of text level discourse. It is common to work on inference, understanding of different levels of questioning, as well as teaching a range of general reading comprehension strategies such as summarizing, finding the main idea, and perhaps visualizing.

    One area that is not so well researched, perhaps even neglected in our field despite being closely linked with comprehension abilities is that of text cohesion. Simply put, this is the “glue” that connects sentences together and distinguishes a unified text from a series of unrelated sentences.

    The concept was first introduced and formalized in the seminal work of Halliday and Hasan (1976). According to the authors, for a passage of information to be regarded as a text, certain features must be present. We are talking not just about the organizational macrostructures that characterize different genres (although these do add to the “texture”), but the “cohesive ties” that connect individual sentences to each other grammatically or semantically (Halliday and Hasan, 1976).

    Simply put, cohesion occurs when one element of a passage can only be understood in reference to another. In the text, “A man in a blue anorak wandered over Tower Bridge. He stopped to admire the view”, the word “he” can only be understood by referring back to “a man in a blue anorak” in the previous sentence. Cohesion may go in either direction: when you have to refer backwards, as in the previous example, it is called anaphora. This is by far the most common type of cohesive tie. (Halliday and Hasan, 1976).

    It is also possible to refer forwards, e.g. “When he got home, John went straight to bed” and “I couldn’t believe she did it: Sarah won the marathon”. In both examples, pronouns are used early on to refer forward to information that comes later. So in the second example, “it” refers forward to “the winning of the marathon”. This is called cataphora. Interestingly, this is the primary function of a colon: as a kind of visual arrow pointing forwards (Halliday and Hasan, 1976).

    Halliday and Hasan (1976) classified cohesive devices into 5 categories: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion. According to them, the first three are grammatical in nature, whilst the last is semantic, with conjunction being a combination of the two. However, they were quick to note that there is no sharp dividing line between categories and some examples may be on the borderline (Halliday and Hasan, 1976). Other researchers have organized them in different ways.

    Reference involves replacing a specific entity in the text with another, as in the man in the blue anorak example. Common reference items include the personal pronouns, “he”, “she”, “they”, “it”, etc, as well as the demonstratives “this” and “that”. The definite article “the” also plays a role, so named because it denotes something definite, or specific.

    In the text, “A stray cat appeared on my doorstep this morning. The cat looked hungry, so I gave it some food”, we understand that the cat being mentioned in the second sentence is the same as in the first, since “the” is frequently used to link back to a noun that has already been introduced. Reference mainly involves replacing nouns, though this could be people, animals, places (e.g. there) or objects. In extended reference, whole paragraphs may even be replaced, e.g. “considering all this”.

    In substitution, a word or phrase is also replaced with a filler word, but something is added that contrasts with the original idea (Halliday and Hasan, 1976). For example, in the text, “My pen has run out of ink. I need to buy a new one”, “one” substitutes for “pen”. But we are not talking about the exact same pen; we want a new pen. Substitution may be nominal, verbal, or even clausal. Common examples include “one”, “any”, “same”, “do  so”, “not”, etc, “Is James coming to the party? I hope so”.

    Ellipsis is similar to substitution, but redundant information is removed instead of being replaced. Halliday and Hasan (1976) called it “substitution by zero”.  So in the text, “There were ten laptops available in the shop yesterday. Now there are only three”, we can only understand what “three” is referring to by looking back to “laptops” in the previous sentence.

    Conjunctions and adverbial conjuncts can also be used as cohesive devices, since they link different propositions together across sentences and make the relationships between them explicit. These relationships may be additive, adversative, causal, temporal, explanatory, or other, e.g. “furthermore”, “despite”, “anyway”, etc.

    Finally, sentences may be linked together using vocabulary in lexical cohesion, which can be further subdivided into reiteration and collocation. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), nominal reiteration is very similar to pronominal reference, grammatically speaking, since the original noun is replaced by something else.

    However, instead of a personal pronoun being used, this “something else” may take the form of a synonym, superordinate, subordinate or general noun (or simply the same word repeated). For example, in the text: “The neighbour’s tiny puppy was left outside in the freezing rain all night. The poor thing was shivering uncontrollably when we found it”, “the poor thing” refers back to the puppy.

    As well as acting as a cohesive device it allows writers to share more information or a personal feeling about their subject, whilst avoiding repetition. It is a tool relied on heavily by journalists in newspaper articles. This is also one of the examples that falls on the borderline between categories according to Halliday and Hasan (1976), having both a syntactic and semantic element.

    With collocation, the linkages between sentences are of a more general nature. Here, we are not focusing on a particular referent. Instead, the presence of related words found throughout the passage tie it together. The more likely the words are to be encountered in the same context, the more cohesive the passage will be. So the words “surgeon”, “craniotomy”, “procedure” and “incision” will give a certain type of “texture”.

    Some types of anaphor are easier to understand than others. A simple cohesive tie connects one sentence with the preceding, and is probably the easiest to understand. More remote ties that span several sentences will be more difficult because they tax working memory capacity (Irwin, 1986). Equally, nominal reference is thought to be easier than verbal reference to understand, whilst replacement of whole clauses and paragraphs of information is thought to be the hardest.

    In her work on later language development, Marilyn Nippold (1998) observed how understanding and use of a range of cohesive devices continues to develop throughout the school-age and adolescent years. But according to Nelson (1998), this is something that many with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) struggle with. Indeed, young children with DLD are known for having difficulty with pronominal reference, and inconsistency with this is something I have noticed even at secondary school age.

    However, an even greater concern has been some of my students’ difficulties with lexical reiteration. A student with these types of difficulties might easily imagine several different characters in a text where only one is being referred to by different nouns. If a text contains the sentences, “The doctor walked into the emergency room. The surgeon grabbed the scalpel. The specialist began to work”, a struggling student might imagine three different characters. Such a difficulty will clearly have a profound impact on text level comprehension.

    To sum up, despite production and comprehension of text cohesion devices being a common area of difficulty for students with DLD, there is currently little information about this in our field compared to others such as education and linguistics. Although the student I mentioned earlier also had broader inferencing difficulties, poor understanding of text cohesion devices, especially lexical reiteration, was a notable problem for him. In future posts I hope to share some practical ways to help students navigate these difficulties.

    Notes

    Halliday, M. A. K., and Ruqaiya Hasan. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976.

    Irwin, Judith Westphal. Understanding and Teaching Cohesion Comprehension. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 1986

    Nelson, N. W. (1998) Childhood Language Disorders in Context: Infancy Through Adolescence. 2nd edn. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

    Nippold, M.A. (1998) Later language development: The school-age and adolescent years. 2nd ed. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

  • Is poor working memory the cause of comprehension difficulties in older students with language disorders?

    Students with language disorders have difficulties that extend beyond language. There is an extensive research literature linking weaknesses in broader cognitive skills such as attention, processing speed, executive functioning, short term and working memory with language disorders (Leonard et al, 2007, 2013, Henry and Botting, 2017).

    Short term and working memory have received particular attention. Whilst some studies have identified weaknesses in the nonverbal component, suggestive of domain-general impairments in this population, deficits in verbal short term memory (VSTM) and verbal working memory (VWM) have been more consistently reported, and found to be 2-3 times larger (Vugs et al, 2013). What’s more, poor performance on nonword repetition tasks, widely used to test VSTM, is even considered a clinical marker for Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) (Bishop et al, 2016).

    VSTM and VWM are often used interchangeably, but VSTM might be more accurately considered a component of VWM. VSTM refers to the ability to hold information just heard in mind for a short period of time before it “decays” and has historically been thought of as a “storage space” with limited capacity. Indeed, most people are only able to keep three or four chunks of information in their heads at once (Montgomery et al, 2021).

    Meanwhile, VWM involves manipulation as well as storage of information, and is increasingly being thought of more as a “mental workspace”. Others have spoken of VWM in terms of a set of cognitive processes that include sustained attention, inhibition of irrelevant information, and the ability to switch simultaneously between maintenance of stored information and processing new information (Marton et al, 2007, Leonard et al, 2013).

    Various theories of working memory have been proposed in the past, one of the most influential being Baddeley and Hitch’s multicomponent model, made up of two passive storage systems: the “phonological loop” (or VSTM) and “visuo-spatial sketchpad”, as well as a “central executive” and “episodic buffer” (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974, Baddeley, 2000).

    According to this, the phonological loop stores speech-based and verbal information (and could be considered what we refer to as VSTM). Whilst information typically fades away after a couple of seconds, it is possible to keep it in an active state for longer through silent repetition (such as when you repeat a phone number or code to yourself). The visuospatial sketchpad stores visual information in a similar fashion, whilst the central executive acts as the control centre, dividing and switching attention between different tasks. Meanwhile, the episodic buffer binds the information together, and acts as an interface between short and long-term memory.

    VSTM and VWM are considered essential to learning in the classroom, from following lengthy instructions and understanding what’s going on in lessons, to keeping the steps of a task in mind and recalling the details of a story. Working memory has been found to be a more powerful predictor of academic achievement even than IQ (Alloway and Alloway, 2010). Students with poor VWM may appear inattentive, forgetful or careless, when really they are struggling to retain what was said.

    VWM is also considered to be intrinsically linked to comprehension of complex sentences, since certain elements have to be kept in mind, and even moved around whilst the next part is processed. Long, complex sentences require more processing time than simple sentences, and are not as easily understood (e.g. Marton et al, 2007), suggesting that increased VWM capacity is required to understand such sentences. Montgomery et al (2009) argued that comprehension of both simple and complex grammar is a mentally demanding task for school age children with and without language disorders that requires significant working memory resources.

    Other authors such as Balthazar and Scott (2023) have spoken at length about the various elements that can increase the processing “load” of a sentence. This includes the number of clauses, long distance dependencies (gaps), as well as (in English) anything that disrupts the subject-verb-object order such as passive constructions and post-modification of the noun phrase (see my post for more information).

    Take the following example sentence given by Marilyn Nippold (2010) from a science text book: “organisms that eat living corals, such as the crown-of-thorns sea star, can greatly damage reefs”. In this sentence, post-modification of the noun “organisms” with the phrase “that eat living corals, such as the crown-of-thorns sea star” results in an extended gap between the main subject and verb. This whole phrase must then be stored in VSTM (or the phonological loop according to the Baddeley model) until the reader reaches the main action, “can greatly damage” and understands what the sentence is about.

    For a student with a language disorder and limited VWM, this is likely to be challenging. Other studies have shown that adolescents with DLD do not understand complex sentences as well as their typically developing peers, despite similar performance for simple sentences (Montgomery et al, 2009). Some researchers have even gone so far as to argue that VWM difficulties, rather than poor language knowledge are the primary cause of receptive language difficulties in older students (Larson and McKinley, 2003).

    However, recent research suggests that the reality may be more complex. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that complex sentences are processed in different ways by those with and without language disorders, with working memory playing an unequal role in each. In a large scale study of 117 children with DLD and 117 typically developing peers aged 7-11, Montgomery et al (2021) investigated how a range of measures were connected with comprehension of simple and more complex sentences.

    They found that fluid reasoning and language knowledge residing in long-term memory (LTM) indirectly influenced comprehension of complex, non-canonical sentences in typically developing students. For those with DLD, on the other hand, controlled attention (an important facet of working memory), was more important (Montgomery et al, 2021).

    On the back of this research, they came up with a new memory model, the GEM (Gillam-Evans-Montgomery) model, where VWM serves as a conduit for fluid reasoning, controlled attention and long-term language knowledge. They argued that listeners face the challenge of a rapid incoming stream of speech in different ways (Montgomery et al, 2021).

    According to them, repeated experience with language allows most people to build up linguistic representations in long-term memory (LTM). Typically developing listeners are able to activate these patterns, some of which may take the form of multiword templates, to anticipate the types of words that are likely to come next, as well as to “chunk” the speech stream into noun phrases, verb phrases and even whole clauses. This information is then stored as chunks, reducing the demands on working memory capacity, before being reintegrated into a coherent whole (Montgomery et al, 2021).

    They hypothesized that students with DLD may have weaker, or non-existent representations of certain grammatical structures. This means that they will be unable to segment the speech stream in the same way as their peers, resulting in word by word processing which places enormous pressure on an already overstretched VWM. Accordingly, sentence processing is much more effortful for those with language disorders (Montgomery et al, 2021).

    This theory seems to be backed up by a review of the literature. Karavasilis et al (2023) found inconclusive evidence of a link between VSTM/ VWM and complex sentence comprehension in typically developing individuals. On the other hand, there was a consistent link between working memory and sentence comprehension in those with DLD. The authors concluded that, at least for children with DLD, a processing component is involved in comprehension of complex sentences.

    According to Montgomery et al (2021), the solution is not to attempt to improve students’ VWMs (which, in any case, has had limited success), but rather, to support their language representations in long-term memory.

    Notes

    Alloway, Tracy Packiam, and Ross G. Alloway. “Investigating the Predictive Roles of Working Memory and IQ in Academic Attainment.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 106, no. 1 (May 2010): 20–29.

    Baddeley, Alan D., and Graham J. Hitch. 1974. “Working Memory.” In The Psychology of Learning and Motivation: Advances in Research and Theory, edited by Gordon H. Bower, Vol. 8, 47–89. New York: Academic Press.

    Baddeley, A.D. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 417-423.

    Baddeley, Alan. 2003. “Working Memory: Looking Back and Looking Forward.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4, no. 10: 829–39.

    Balthazar, Catherine H., and Cheryl M. Scott. “Sentences Are Key.” American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 33, no. 2 (2023): 564–579.

    Bishop DVM, Snowling MJ, Thompson PA, Greenhalgh T, CATALISE consortium (2016)

    CATALISE: A Multinational and Multidisciplinary Delphi Consensus Study. Identifying Language Impairments in Children. PLoS ONE 11(7): e0158753. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158753

    Haebig, Eileen, Christine Weber, Laurence B. Leonard, Patricia Deevy, and J. Bruce Tomblin. “Neural Patterns Elicited by Sentence Processing Uniquely Characterize Typical Development, SLI Recovery, and SLI Persistence.” Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 9, no. 1 (2017): 22.

    Henry, L. & Botting, N. (2017). Working memory and developmental language impairments. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 33(1), pp. 19-32.

    Karavasilis, Gavriil, K. Diakogiorgi, and D. Papadopoulou. 2023. “The Role of Working Memory in the Comprehension of Syntactically Complex Sentences in Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder: A Literature Review.” Psychology: The Journal of the Hellenic Psychological Society 28 (2): 205–222.

    Larson, V.L. and McKinley, N.L. (2003) Communication solutions for older students. Thinking Pub. 

    Leonard, Laurence B., Patricia Deevy, James W. Miller, Chrystal Rameela, Robert Schwartz, and J. Bruce Tomblin. “Speed of Processing, Working Memory, and Language Impairment in Children.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 50, no. 2 (April 2007): 408–428. 

    Leonard, Laurence B., Patricia Deevy, Marc E. Fey, and Shelley L. Bredin-Oja. “Sentence Comprehension in Specific Language Impairment: A Task Designed to Distinguish between Cognitive Capacity and Syntactic Complexity.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 56, no. 2 (April 2013): 577-589.

    Marton, Klara, Richard G. Schwartz, Lajos Farkas, and Valeriya Katsnelson. “Effect of Sentence Length and Complexity on Working Memory Performance in Hungarian Children with Specific Language Impairment: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison.” International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 42, no. 6 (2007): 691–711.

    McCauley, Stewart M., and Morten H. Christiansen. 2015. “Individual Differences in Chunking Ability Predict On-line Sentence Processing.” In Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, edited by D. C. Noelle et al., 1550–1555. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. 

    Montgomery, James W., and Julia L. Evans. 2009. “Complex Sentence Comprehension and Working Memory in Children with Specific Language Impairment.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 52, no. 2 (April): 269-288.

    Montgomery, James W., Ronald B. Gillam, and Julia L. Evans. “A New Memory Perspective on the Sentence Comprehension Deficits of School-Age Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Implications for Theory, Assessment, and Intervention.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 52, no. 2 (April 2021): 449–466.

    Newman, Sharlene D., Evie Malaia, Roy Seo, and Hu Cheng. “The effect of individual differences in working memory capacity on sentence comprehension: an fMRI study.” Brain and Language 125, no. 3 (2013): 269-277.

    Nippold, Marilyn A. 2010. “Back to School: Why the Speech-Language Pathologist Belongs in the Classroom.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 41 (4): 377–378.

    Vugs, B., Cuperus, J., Hendriks, M., & Verhoeven, L. (2013). Visuospatial working memory in specific language impairment: A meta-analysis. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 34(9), 2596-2597.

  • What is literate language and how is it relevant at secondary school?

    By the time they start primary school, most children have a robust lexicon of words that they are able to employ for different purposes (Benson, 2009). However, as they progress through the years, they begin to learn more and more words, slowly acquiring a rich and varied vocabulary, capable of expressing great subtlety in meaning.

    This includes more abstract and technical terms, as well as low frequency, subject-specific “Tier 3” words. Many of these words will be multisyllabic and morphologically complex, containing a root word and at least one affix (a prefix or suffix) (Nippold, 2018). This stage of vocabulary acquisition is typically associated with literacy development and increased exposure to written materials which contain more of these “literate” forms.

    Written language differs from oral language in a number of ways, but chiefly in the amount of contextualization or abstraction (Benson, 2009). Whilst oral language is supported by non-linguistic information such as the speaker’s use of gesture and tone of voice, as well as the physical surroundings in which the interaction takes place, written language must stand alone (Rubin, 1987). (For more information about the differences between oral and written language, see my post: https://secondaryschoolslt.wordpress.com/2026/04/06/how-are-oral-and-written-language-different/)

    This results in a particular style of language that is denser, with a more specified lexicon and advanced syntactic structures (Benson, 2009) to convey complex thoughts and relationships between ideas. This style, used in the “literate activities of reading, writing, listening to lectures, talking about language and thought and mastering the school curriculum” has been termed “literate language”, or the “literate lexicon” (Nippold, 1998, p.21).

    Words included under this umbrella are a wide range of conjunctions, adverbs of likelihood and magnitude, factive and non-factive verbs, metacognitive and metalinguistic verbs, polysemous and double function words, as well as adverbial conjuncts and derived nominals and adjectives (Nippold, 1998).

    Whilst simple coordinating conjunctions such as “and”, “but” and “so” are relied on in casual conversation, written and instructional discourse, especially at secondary level, is characterized by a wider range of subordinating conjunctions, including “whereas”, “unless” and “provided that”, to express more complex relationships between ideas (Balthazar et al, 2010).

    Although words such as “possibly”, “somewhat” and “barely” may not seem complicated, adverbs of likelihood and magnitude such as these are also key components of literate language, since they enable precision of thought that goes beyond simple, concrete descriptions.

    Certain types of verbs also contribute to the abstract nature and linguistic specificity of written discourse. Factive and non-factive verbs, such as “know”, “realise”, “believe” and “imagine” reflect different mental states and distinguish between concepts of truth and uncertainty. Metalinguistic verbs such as “assert”, “imply” and “concede”, as well as metacognitive verbs such as “hypothesise”, “infer” and “doubt” are also crucial for academic reasoning and constructing arguments.

    On a related note, polysemous and double function words such as “cold” or “sweet” require advanced metalinguistic awareness to understand that the same word can have different meanings depending on the context. Whilst many words have a casual, everyday sense that even young children will know, academic texts frequently feature the more abstract sense which won’t be learnt until later on (Nippold, 1998).

    At secondary level, adverbial conjuncts such as “consequently”, “subsequently”, “conversely”, and “ultimately” are also used increasingly (Nippold, 2016) in essays and other high level expository texts as a way of “signposting” information for the reader. These words connect ideas across sentences, rather than within sentences as conjunctions do.

    Other examples of literate words include derived nominals and derived adjectives. Derived nominals are nouns formed by adding suffixes to verbs, e.g. “condensation” from condense, whilstderived adjectives come from nouns e.g. “categorical” from category. Words such as these are commonly found in subjects such as science, mathematics and English literature (Nippold, 2018).

    In one study, Nippold examined a range of textbooks for the aforementioned subjects to see how often these types of words occurred. Out of a total of 16,028 words, she found 254 derived nominals and 273 derived adjectives. Although this may not seem like a huge number, she argued that they occurred often enough that any student who struggled with them could easily misinterpret key parts of the text (Nippold, 2018).

    Literate language also extends beyond the lexicon to certain types of sentence structure. Written sentences tend to be longer and more densely packed with information, with subordinate clauses arranged in hierarchical rather than linear fashion to highlight importance of ideas (Balthazar et al, 2010).

    According to Marilyn Nippold, these two features develop in tandem, in what she called the “lexicon-syntax interface” (Nippold, 2014). For example, she highlighted how the use of meta-cognitive verbs drives the use of nominal clauses, e.g. “she assumed that he would arrive” (Nippold, 2014). Elaborated noun phrases are also commonly used in subjects such as science to introduce specialist vocabulary, e.g. “sedimentary rocks, layers of compacted sand and marine shells, are formed over millions of years” (Balthazar et al, 2010).

    To reiterate, most children gradually develop an awareness of literate language features through repeated exposure to and engagement with complex written and instructional materials. Whilst young children tend to learn new words orally through informal conversation, this shifts around the fourth year of primary school (Nippold, 1998), as they move from the “learning to read” to the “reading to learn” stage.

    Older school children learn new words in three main ways: through direct instruction of curriculum vocabulary in their lessons, as well as employing the metalinguistic strategies of contextual abstraction and morphological analysis to their own independent reading (Nippold, 2018). These strategies entail working out the meanings of new words encountered in text from the context and from their constituent parts, respectively.

    Learning new words in this way requires not only metalinguistic awareness and knowledge of a range of different root words and affixes, but also a substantial amount of time spent reading challenging texts on a regular basis (Nippold, 2018). Research has found that active, proficient and motivated readers who are interested in a wide range of topics develop much larger vocabularies than struggling readers. (Nippold, 1998).

    Unfortunately, students with language disorders often fall into the latter category; many struggle to read at a basic level, or to understand what they read (Nippold, 2018). What’s more, those who did not manage to establish a solid basis in oral language skills earlier on in their schooling will have enormous difficulty engaging with more challenging literate language (Benson, 2009).

    Students with language disorders also tend to be less strategic learners (Nippold, 2018), with poorer metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness. Whilst this makes them less likely to use the aforementioned strategies, metalinguistic awareness is also intertwined with literate language on a deeper level, since words are chosen carefully to reflect nuances in meaning (Benson, 2009).

    Difficulties with literate language may appear subtle compared to more obvious oral language deficits. However, familiarity with this style is vital for academic success (Benson, 2009), and any difficulties will affect students’ ability to understand explanations in lectures and textbooks, to write essays and reports, and engage in debates. Ignorance of certain types of words such as derived nominals and adjectives may also hinder success in STEM related subjects and access to those fields (Nippold, 2018).

    For more information about the purpose and distinctive features of academic language, or “expository discourse”, please see my next post: https://secondaryschoolslt.wordpress.com/2026/04/15/what-is-expository-discourse-and-how-is-it-relevant-at-secondary-school/

    Notes

    Balthazar, Catherine H., and Cheryl M. Scott. “The Grammar of Information: Challenges for Older Students with Language Impairments.” Topics in Language Disorders 30, no. 4 (2010): 313–327.

    Benson, Susan E. “Understanding Literate Language: Developmental and Clinical Issues.” Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders 36 (Fall 2009): 174–78.

    Nippold, M.A. (1998) Later language development: The school-age and adolescent years. 2nd ed. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

    Nippold, Marilyn. (2014). Language Intervention at the Middle School: Complex Talk Reflects Complex Thought. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. 45. 153-156. 10.1044/2014_LSHSS-14-0027.

    Nippold, Marilyn A. “Back to School.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 47, no. 4 (2016): 269–71.

    Nippold, Marilyn A. “The Literate Lexicon in Adolescents: Monitoring the Use and Understanding of Morphologically Complex Words.” Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups 3, no. 1 (2018): 211–221.

    Rubin, Donald L. “Divergence and Convergence between Oral and Written Communication.” Topics in Language Disorders 7, no. 4 (1987): 1-18. 

  • What is expository discourse and how is it relevant at secondary school?

    Expository discourse, or “informational language”, as suggested by the name, is language used to explain, inform and describe (Ukrainetz, 2024). Also known as “the language of the curriculum”, it is the academic language used in class lectures and textbooks, and required in student presentations, essays and reports. It’s also used when explaining how to bake a cake, in a textbook explanation of photosynthesis, or in an essay describing the causes and consequences of a historical event.

    There are different varieties of exposition, such as description, enumeration, causation, and comparing and contrasting; each has its own particular organizational structure and distinguishing features. What connects these disparate activities is an intent to convey factual or technical information in an abstract, generalized way (Ukrainetz, 2024).

    Whilst conversation and narrative discourse tend to be more personal and social in nature, often referring to specific people and events, informational language tends to relate to more general concepts and processes. Although specific events or experiences may be mentioned, they are typically transcended to focus on “what generally happens”. This is reflected in the use of the present and infinitive tenses, compared to the narrative past tense (Ukrainetz, 2024).

    Whilst narrative discourse predominates at primary school, and continues to develop at secondary school, expository discourse comes to the fore. Although less familiar, it is central to teaching and learning at the secondary level, and students are expected to spend a large part of their day reading and listening to expository discourse (Scott, 2009).

    Worryingly, expository discourse is also one of the hardest genres to understand (Nippold, 2017). In one study, primary school children were found to have consistently poorer understanding of expository texts than narratives (Snyder and Caccamise, 2008). Correspondingly, Cheryl Scott (2009) notes that informational sentences written by adults tended to be longer and more complex than narrative sentences.

    In another landmark study, Marilyn Nippold and colleagues recruited 120 typically developing individuals from ages 7 to 49 in order to compare conversational and expository speech samples across different ages. The conversational samples were based on common subjects such as participants’ friends, families, school, or work. For the expository sample, they asked participants to explain the rules of their favourite game or sport (Nippold et al, 2005).

    The results revealed greater syntactic complexity for the expository samples compared to the conversational samples across all age groups. Nippold argued that the increased cognitive demands of the expository task had compelled the subjects to use more advanced sentence structures (Nippold et al, 2005). In a later article, she asserted that “complex thought encourages complex talk” (Nippold, 2014).

    So what exactly makes expository discourse more complex, and harder to understand? In a general sense, since its object is to convey new information, exposition is inherently more challenging (Nippold, 2017). More specifically, there are numerous lexical, grammatical and structural features that distinguish expository text and make it more challenging for the average person, let alone those with language disorders.

    Firstly, expository texts have a higher proportion of content words (nouns, adjectives and verbs) than narratives or conversational discourse (Balthazar et al, 2010). Compared to the small, familiar lexicon of casual conversation, exposition is distinguished by a richer, more varied vocabulary through which to convey its various concepts. Words tend to be more precise, abstract and technical, as well as multisyllabic and often morphologically complex. According to Beck’s three tier hierarchy, advanced Tier 2 words as well as low-frequency and specialized Tier 3 words are more commonly found (Beck et al, 2013; Ukrainetz, 2024).

    Informational sentences also tend to be longer and more complex, involving multiple subordinate clauses structured in a hierarchical rather than linear fashion so as to highlight the most important information (Balthazar et al, 2010). Specific grammatical features of exposition that may be particularly difficult to understand include nominalization and pre- and post-modification of the noun phrase (Ukrainetz, 2024).

    Nominalisation is the process of turning a verb into a noun, and is commonly used in both science and history, e.g. “evaporation” (from evaporate), “neutralization” (from neutralize) and “colonisation” (from colonise). It is useful for writers since it allows them to pack more information into a sentence, but harder for readers because it hides the agent and action, making sentences feel denser and more abstract.

    Pre- and post-modification refers to adding words before or after a noun to add detail, creating a noun phrase. Again, it is commonly used in science and can serve a useful function as a way of teaching new vocabulary (Balthazar et al, 2010), e.g. “Chlorophyll, a pigment that causes plants to be green, is vital for photosynthesis”, and “the microscopic capillaries connecting the smallest arteries to the smallest veins”.

    In the first sentence, the noun “chlorophyll” is modified by following it with the appositive, “a pigment that causes plants to be green”, creating a noun phrase with a definition embedded. In the second instance, the pre-modifier “microscopic” and the following participial phrase, “connecting the smallest arteries…” give clues to the meaning of the word “capillary” in terms of size and location.

    These structures provide a useful way of teaching new information without using too many words. However, a student with poor syntactic knowledge would struggle to decipher sentences such as these and might miss out on the explanations. (For a more detailed look at some of the linguistic features that distinguish expository discourse, please see my post: https://secondaryschoolslt.com/2026/04/25/what-is-literate-language-and-how-is-it-relevant-at-secondary-school/)

    As touched on briefly earlier, exposition encompasses a wide range of different subgenres, each with their own distinguishing features, and this too, makes it difficult to engage with. Whilst a student can rely on the familiar structure of a narrative, many different rules have to be learnt for exposition, and some varieties have almost no structure (Ukrainetz, 2024).

    Ultimately, understanding and expression of expository discourse is a complex task requiring a rich and varied vocabulary, advanced grammatical understanding, awareness of different organisational structures and topic knowledge as well as other cognitive skills such as adequate working memory. Unfortunately, students with language disorders tend to struggle in all of these areas.

    Notes

    Balthazar, Catherine H., and Cheryl M. Scott. “The Grammar of Information: Challenges for Older Students with Language Impairments.” Topics in Language Disorders 30, no. 4 (2010): 313–327.

    Nippold, Marilyn. (2014). Language Intervention at the Middle School: Complex Talk Reflects Complex Thought. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. 45. 153-156. 10.1044/2014_LSHSS-14-0027.

    Nippold, Marilyn A. 2017. “Reading Comprehension Deficits in Adolescents: Addressing Underlying Language Abilities.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 48 (2): 125–131.

    Nippold, Marilyn A., Linda J. Hesketh, Jill K. Duthie, and Tracy C. Mansfield. “Conversational versus Expository Discourse: A Study of Syntactic Development in Children, Adolescents, and Adults.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 48, no. 5 (October 2005): 1048–64.

    Scott, Cheryl M. “A Case for the Sentence in Reading Comprehension.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 40, no. 2 (2009): 184-191.

    Snyder, Lynn, and Donna Caccamise. 2008. “Comprehension Processes for Expository Text: Building Meaning and Making Sense.” In New Directions in Communication Disorders Research: Integrative Approaches, edited by M. A. Nippold and C. M. Scott, 13–39. New York: Psychology Press.

    Ukrainetz, Teresa A. “Evidence-Based Expository Intervention: A Tutorial for Speech-Language Pathologists.” American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 33, no. 2 (2024): 654–675.

  • How are oral and written language different?

    Written language is not just oral language “written down”, but is different in both style and function. Whilst oral language is typically less formal, with concrete, familiar words and simpler sentences, written language tends to be denser and more information-heavy, with specialist vocabulary and complex sentence structures (Benson, 2009).

    These differences can be traced back to the different functions of each type of language, and the contexts in which they occur. Whilst oral language is typically face to face, with communication partners who are known well to us, written language is more solitary, to an unknown readership. It follows that oral language tends to communicate more personal and social content, whereas written language tends to convey more logical and informational content. (Rubin, 1987).

    Writing may take place over an extended period of time, whereas oral language is typically more spontaneous. When you speak, the words disappear, but writing leaves a permanent visual trace, which “serves as an adjunct to short- and long-term memory” (Rubin, 1987, p.2), allowing the writer to reflect on and revise the ideas generated.

    Having briefly outlined the broad differences between the two modes, I will now detail the resulting differences in structure and style. Much of the content for this post was drawn from Rubin’s still highly relevant article, “Divergence and convergence between oral and written communication” (Rubin, 1987).

    Firstly, the face to face context of oral communication results in language that is less precise, with  a smaller, more familiar lexicon. Since speakers are typically in the same place at the same time, and may share a whole range of common experiences and associations, they may refer to objects in the surrounding environment, or discuss “in jokes” more obliquely. Prosody and other non-verbal communication also support the oral message, allowing speakers to be less specific (Rubin, 1987).

    The spontaneous nature of oral communication also influences its informal style, filled with hesitations, interjections, false starts and self-corrections. Since speakers must invent their subject matter in real time, language tends to be more fragmented and less cohesive with more tenuous connections. Sentences tend to be more basic as well as redundant, joined by simple connectives such as “and”, “but” or “so” (Rubin, 1987).

    This repetitive, more simplistic style of communication not only takes the pressure off the speaker, but also serves a role for the listener. Since they have no control over how fast or clearly their communication partner speaks, or any distracting environmental stimuli which may further affect the message, these integral elements of oral communication can help them to interpret the message the second time around. What’s more, immediate feedback allows any misunderstandings to be cleared up immediately (Rubin 1987).

    Writers, on the other hand, share no common physical or temporal context with their readers and cannot assume any prior understanding on their behalf. Unlike oral communication, writing is unsupported by any nonlinguistic clues and must stand alone. For the message to be understood, language must be precise, with referents clearly specified, using more advanced, technical terms and a greater range of vocabulary to clearly delineate meaning (Rubin, 1987).

    Since writing also allows time for reflection, it encourages greater creativity and higher level thought, which require more complex means of expression. This results in more elaborate language distinguished by longer clauses, advanced syntactic structures and a wider range of connectives as well as greater use of subordination as different propositions are organized in hierarchical fashion. Revision also allows writers to pack information more tightly and avoid repetition (Rubin, 1987).

    To support readers to understand this more complex, written language, writers need to ensure that their texts are cohesive, and appear as a unified whole. Writers also use organizational cues, such as transition statements, and orthographic markers such as punctuation and splitting ideas into paragraphs to support their readers to decipher their messages (Rubin, 1987).

    Rubin (1987) is quick to note that oral and written language are not completely distinct from one another, but overlap, and exist on a spectrum. At times, oral language may appear more “literate”, as in the prepared, formal speech of a barrister, whilst written language may contain more “orality”, as in a first person narrative, where we really “hear” the character’s voice (Rubin, 1987).

    He observes how the written language of novices is often not that far from their speech. But with repeated exposure to written text, students begin to develop an awareness of the differences between written and oral communication. Intent on exhibiting this distinction, some insecure writers may attempt to write in a hypercorrect way, in an unrealistic stereotype of what they think written language is. However, “for those who develop into expert, practiced writers… writing and speech reconverge” (Kroll, 1981 cited in Rubin, 1987, p13).

    As Speech and Language Therapists, knowing the differences between oral and written communication may help us in better understanding our students’ needs. Working in a secondary school context, I come across many who are competent oral communicators, but who struggle with the more technical vocabulary and advanced sentence structures characterized by the written form. These students will need our support to access the curriculum as they progress through school and are expected to engage with increasingly complex written materials.

    For more information about expository discourse, the heavily literate language of secondary school, please see my post: https://secondaryschoolslt.wordpress.com/2026/04/15/what-is-expository-discourse-and-how-is-it-relevant-at-secondary-school/

    Notes

    Benson, Susan E. “Understanding Literate Language: Developmental and Clinical Issues.” Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders 36 (Fall 2009): 174–78.

    Rubin, Donald L. “Divergence and Convergence between Oral and Written Communication.” Topics in Language Disorders 7, no. 4 (1987): 1-18. 

  • Why do some students struggle to understand what they read?

    Reading comprehension is not a single skill, but a complex task underpinned by a range of different abilities and knowledge (Catts, 2021). To understand a text, students must first have adequate sight reading and decoding abilities, as well as fluency in reading. They will need to have adequate background and vocabulary knowledge, and be able to use a range of metalinguistic strategies to work out the meanings of new words as well as to monitor and repair any gaps in understanding.

    They will also need adequate working memory to keep the relevant information in mind and piece it all together into a coherent whole. On top of all this, to truly engage with a text, students will need to infer, reason, compare and contrast, summarise information, problem solve and interpret. Given the complexity of the task, some have gone so far as to call it, “thinking guided by print” (Catts, 2009).

    Catts (2021) emphasized the particular importance of background knowledge in understanding a text. Whilst we may think of reading as a way of learning new information, research has shown that our prior knowledge of the general domain of the text greatly influences comprehension. In one study, poor decoders who were knowledgeable in the subject matter (baseball) outperformed good decoders with poor understanding of the subject (Catts, 2009).

    This may be because new information needs something to hook onto: an anchor (Catts, 2021). When we read a text, we are not so much learning new information, as we are integrating it with our own prior knowledge to create a dynamic “situational model” (Catts, 2009). Having an awareness of the topic can also prevent us from going off on the wrong track, and guide us in making inferences. It is likely that having some background knowledge will also allow students to think more deeply about the topic, due to freeing up working memory space (Catts, 2021).

    Another important aspect of reading comprehension which has sometimes been overlooked, yet is especially relevant to Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs), is sentence comprehension. In her article, “A Case for the Sentence in Reading Comprehension”, Cheryl Scott (2009) argues that many reading comprehension problems are actually the result of undetected sentence processing difficulties. There is a fair amount of evidence for her position.

    Traditionally, students with “literacy difficulties” have been split into two camps: “poor decoders” and “poor comprehenders”. Poor decoders are those who struggle to translate letters into sounds, to blend them together to make words, to read fluently: those who could also be described as “dyslexic”. Poor comprehenders, on the other hand, have no problem with the reading process itself, but they struggle to understand the meaning of a text. Approximately 5-10% of school children could be said to fit into this category (Catts et al, 2006).

    A range of studies have found evidence of weak underlying language abilities in this group. For example, Catts’s group of poor comprehenders scored near the 20% percentile for receptive vocabulary, and near the 30th percentile for grammatical understanding. He observes that although mild, and “subclinical”, these difficulties may be enough to have a significant impact on complex reading comprehension tasks. Whilst these difficulties were often present from kindergarten, only a small percentage of these children had met the criteria for a language disorder, with very few receiving support from an SLT (Catts et al, 2006).

    Despite these findings, reading comprehension interventions have traditionally prioritized the teaching of generic strategies over targeting any underlying language deficits. But Cheryl Scott (2009) observes that if a student is unable to parse individual sentences to derive meaning from them, then they will struggle to understand at text level. Marylin Nippold (2017) also questions how we can expect students to grasp the main idea, or to summarise a passage if they have not understood the individual sentences it is composed of.  Although reading comprehension strategies may be useful to some students, they are unlikely to be effective unless underlying language deficits are addressed first.

    Given the myriad skills required by the task of reading comprehension, it is no wonder that students with underlying language difficulties struggle so much. Besides having poorer vocabularies and syntactic ability as mentioned previously, some of these students may have associated difficulties with working memory and literacy. They are also likely to have poorer background knowledge by dint of their reading difficulties and possible reluctance with reading. Thus, a vicious cycle is born, where students see their difficulties compounded.

    As SLTs, it may be worth paying particular attention to the overlooked role of syntax (Nippold, 2017): something we are very specifically qualified to address. This is particularly relevant to the secondary school years, as students are expected to understand increasingly complex sentence structures (see my post). Indeed, it is no coincidence that a group of “poor comprehenders” typically emerge at this time (Scott, 2009). Unfortunately, there is still a great need for research in this area (Nippold, 2017).

    Notes

    Catts, Hugh W., Suzanne M. Adlof, and Susan Ellis Weismer. “Language Deficits in Poor Comprehenders: A Case for the Simple View of Reading.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 49, no. 2 (2006): 278–293.

    Catts, Hugh W. “The Narrow View of Reading Promotes a Broad View of Comprehension.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 40, no. 2 (April 2009): 178–183. 

    Catts, Hugh W. “Rethinking How to Promote Reading Comprehension.” American Educator 45, no. 4 (Winter 2021-2022): 26–33. 

    Nippold, Marilyn A. 2017. “Reading Comprehension Deficits in Adolescents: Addressing Underlying Language Abilities.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 48 (2): 125–131.

    Scott, Cheryl M. “A Case for the Sentence in Reading Comprehension.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 40, no. 2 (2009): 184-191.

  • What is cognitive referencing and should Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) use it?

    Cognitive referencing, also known as the discrepancy model, refers to the outdated practice of determining eligibility for a diagnosis, and/or Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) services by comparing an individual’s language abilities with their non-verbal IQ. According to this, children with language difficulties would be expected to have average overall intelligence, i.e. there ought to be a large “discrepancy” between their verbal and nonverbal scores in order to qualify for SALT support.

    The reason for this was that a certain level of cognition was believed necessary to make progress with language skills, and therefore to benefit from intervention. An individual’s nonverbal intelligence scores were considered the “ceiling” up to which progress could be made. In areas where services were very stretched, and where it was felt necessary to prioritise those who would benefit the most, below average IQ was sometimes used as a reason to deny services.

    This practice was quite common during the 1980s and 1990s, especially in school settings, and it is still used in some circles now. The previously used label of Specific Language Impairment (SLI), also used cognitive referencing as part of its “exclusionary criteria”. Since it was meant to identify language disorders that were “specific” in nature, i.e. occurring in the absence of any other difficulties, such as hearing impairment or general cognitive deficits, those with low non-verbal IQ were automatically excluded.

    However, the very notion of a “pure” language disorder is questionable, and the exception rather than the rule in clinical practice anyway. If we were to restrict support to only those who presented with “pure” language disorders, then we risk denying services to those most in need (Bishop et al, 2016). In 2016, a panel of experts rejected the label as “not reflecting clinical realities” (Bishop et al, 2016) and it has now been replaced with the more inclusive “Developmental Language Disorder” (DLD), which does not apply such restrictions.

    For further discussion on terminology, please see my article: https://secondaryschoolslt.wordpress.com/2026/02/26/developmental-language-disorder-a-brief-history-of-terminology/

    There are several other problems with cognitive referencing, and many experts in the field, e.g. Larson and McKinley (2003) have argued strongly against the practice over the years. For one thing, the supposedly nonverbal tests used are rarely a pure measure of nonverbal ability (Paul & Norbury, 2012). While the test items themselves use visual stimuli, some type of oral instructions are usually involved.

    What’s more, children who employ verbal strategies such as inner speech may have an advantage over their peers when solving the complex problems involved in these tests. Since those with language disorders do not tend to use these kind of strategies they are likely to score lower. Ironically, the very tests used to help identify those in need of support are likely to disadvantage those most in need.

    Secondly, whereas cognition was previously understood to underlie and to support language skills, the relationship between the two is now considered to be more complex and bi-directional. For a start, individuals with poor non-verbal ability, yet strong language ability do exist (Larson and McKinley, 2003). This finding alone appears to disprove the theory that a certain level of cognition is needed to make progress with language skills. And individuals with poor nonverbal IQ have been found to benefit from intervention too (Paul & Norbury, 2012, p. 7).

    Speaking of the interplay between verbal and nonverbal abilities, Marilyn Nippold (2014) observed in one paper how “complex talk reflects complex thought”. During one study, she found that challenging students to complete more demanding tasks or use more advanced forms of discourse pushed them to use longer, more complex sentence structures than they would otherwise. I imagine that both influence each other in a symbiotic way: if students’ understanding of a particular concept or topic is vague, and they lack the means to express themselves on it, then providing them with the words and sentence structures to do so may help to elucidate it for them.

    I have personally experienced how writing, the process of putting different words together, and rearranging sentences can help to develop and refine my thinking. Thought without words or images is likely possible, but I imagine it to be a hazy, undefined sort of thing; words can give form and solidity to those ideas forming in the background.

    As an optimist, I see in this an opportunity to support our students beyond what might be considered the boundaries of SLT; if we can give our students words and structures to help them think, then why wouldn’t we? Ultimately, I agree with Larson and McKinley (2003), who stress that we should be thinking of reasons to provide services to adolescents, rather than withhold them.

    Notes

    Bishop DVM, Snowling MJ, Thompson PA, Greenhalgh T, CATALISE consortium (2016)

    CATALISE: A Multinational and Multidisciplinary Delphi Consensus Study. Identifying Language

    Impairments in Children. PLoS ONE 11(7): e0158753. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158753

    Bishop, D.V.M., Snowling, M.J., Thompson, P.A., Greenhalgh, T., and the CATALISE-2 consortium (2017). ​ Phase 2 of CATALISE: a multinational and multidisciplinary Delphi consensus study of problems with language development: Terminology. ​ Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 58(10), pp. ​ 1068–1080. doi:10.1111/jcpp.12721​

    Larson, V.L. and McKinley, N.L. (2003) Communication solutions for older students. Thinking Pub. 

    Nippold, Marilyn. (2014). Language Intervention at the Middle School: Complex Talk Reflects Complex Thought. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. 45. 153-156. 10.1044/2014_LSHSS-14-0027.

    Norbury, C.F., Gooch, D., Wray, C., Baird, G., Charman, T., Simonoff, E., Vamvakas, G., & Pickles, A. ​ (2016). ​ The impact of nonverbal ability on prevalence and clinical presentation of language disorder: evidence from a population study. ​ Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(11), pp. 1247–1257. Available at: https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.12573