SPEECH AND LANGUAGE STIMULATION TECHNIQUES FOR

CHILDREN

PRESENTED BY : KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN, MASLP

SPEECH LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST/THERAPIST

Speech and language stimulation techniques for children:

Children learn to talk because this is an entirely normal aspect of their lives as

social persons. In order to achieve speech; they need warm affection, constant attention

and persistent stimulus. All day long, the mothers talks to her baby and as he begins to

coo and babble, encourage him to talk to her. Besides parents, older brothers and sisters

are joyful sources of speech and language stimulation. If baby is looked upon as peculiar

or different is ignored, or if his speech stimulus is sharply limited, he misses the major

support that he needs. It is good for parents to remember that he is the child, not a little

adult and that it is natural for him to chatter along. He needs help in learning to listen to

him talk, and in comparing what he hears himself saying with he hears his parents saying.

Mother- Child interaction is a predominant feature in relating home environment

in general, to language development in the child. Mothers who ask Qs, who rarely negate

and give few direction, facilitates the childs environment of language. The mother, who

stimulates challenges and encourages independence in the child, facilitates the childs

understanding and reasoning capabilities. The style, which the mother adopts while

speaking to the child, is significant and very valuable in improving the reasoning,

understanding and speaking abilities

A number of clinical techniques has been found to be useful in overcoming

deviant language and establishing appropriate language structures. These techniques are

intended to be applicable at many levels of language training. They may be used

individually or in conjunction with one another. It is presumed that the capable adult

working with language deficient or deviant in child will certainly find ways to modify,

extend and enhance these techniques even further to help the child achieve the best

language skills possible.

1. Echoing:

In this technique, the adult echoes the childs utterance back to him. The adult

may WH such as what or where in place of an unintelligible word from the child or he

may echo the childs utterance with a rising intonation, as if to Qs. What the child said.

This technique need not always require that the child respond at all. It does,

however, let the child knows some of what he says, is not understood by an adult.

Further, specifies to the child, which part of his comment was not understood, thus

enabling the child to focus on particular parts, rather than having to reiterate his entire

comment.

Illustration:

Child: He got 2 magos (unintelligible)

Mother: You got 2 what?

Child: Magos

Mother: Mangoes! Oh! U got 2 mangoes..

Child: Mangoes chweath..

Mother: Mangoes are what?

Child: Chweath.

Mother: yes, mangoes are sweet.

2. Verbal imitation:

In this technique, the child repeats after the mother. But a child will not be able to

imitate those structures that are beyond his own level or linguistics competence. Imitation

also depends on the childs memory span.

While using this technique, one should use the forms which are just slightly above

the childs own present level of functioning. The length of sentence should not exceed the

childs memory span. Imitation is useful in achieving the spontaneous production of

speech. It assists the child in becoming aware of the new structure to be learnt. Imitation

of this new structure will provide the child with an example of where and how the new

structure relates to other aspects of the sentence, which the child already knows. It also

plays a role in the childs acquisition of the language rules, as this tunes the child to parts

of the sentence that he is currently not aware of.

Illustration:

Mother: Will u repeat after me? Today is Friday..

Child: Today..today

Mother: No, no say today is Friday

Child: Mmtoday is feeday..

Mother: Fridaysay Friday

3. Modeling:

This technique can be used before and after the child makes a comment. The

mother offers more information to the child. While her sentence structure is more

elaborate, this is not her primary intention to offer the child a more complex sentence, but

to offer meaningful utterance. It gives the child more things to think about and thus to

comment upon the listener. This technique has 2 strong points:

i) It draws from what the child says to extend the childs comments.

ii) It does not correct or repeat the childs syntactic forms or sentence

structure.

Thus, it does not require that a child produce a form that that he may be unable to use

correctly except as rate imitation, word by word. There are 2types of modeling:

a) Antecedent technique in modeling

Before the child says anything, the mother gives the model and then the child speaks.

b) Sub sequential technique in modeling:

The child speaks 1st and then the mother comments on the childs

utterance without correcting or repeating.

Illustration;

Child: Mummy, chocolate.mmmm

Mother: No, not now dear, we will buy chocolates in the evening.

Child: Mmmmbikki?

Mother: Ok dear, I will get u both chocolates and biscuits in the evening

Child: Evening? Why? .mmmm

Mother: Shops are closed now. We will go out for shopping only in the evening.

Child: Shopping! Evening!......oooooooo

4. Discriminative modeling:

Correct & incorrect responses are modeled consecutively, asking the child to

imitate the correct form, as soon as it is modeled. Modeling of both correct and incorrect

responses encourages discrimination between correct & incorrect responses. The correct

form is strengthened & the incorrect form is weakened.

Illustration:

Mother: See the picture. Tell me, which is correct- the boy is running or the boy is

hopping

Child: The boy is running.

Mother: Good, heres the chocolate for the correct answer.

5. Demonstration actions:

This technique involves the physical acting out of what is said. The child and the

instructor physically go through the action as it has being discussed. This technique is

intended to the language form to the event itself. The real physical action paired to the

language provides the child, a more detailed comprehension or understanding than does a

picture. It involves the child more directly as a participant. This technique is quite useful

with a very young child who may become bored, unless he is physically active and

involved in the situation. It works well for the child, whose language skills are at a very

basic level.

Illustration:

Mother: Open the door child, child. See the picture. Child tell me, which is correct-

The boy is running or the boy is hopping.

Child: The boy is running.

Mother: Good, here is the chocolate for the correct answer.

5. Demonstration actions:

This technique involves the physical acting out of what is said. The child and the

instructor physically go through the action as it has being discussed. This technique is

intended to the language form to the event itself. The real physical action paired to the

language provides the child, a more detailed comprehension or understanding than does a

picture. It involves the child more directly as a participant. This technique is quite useful

with a very young child who may become bored, unless he is physically active and

involved in the situation. It works well for the child, whose language skills are at a very

basic level.

Illustration:

Mother: Open the door, child. See how I am opening it.

Child: Open door (does the action)

Mother: Thats good, you have opened the door. Now, try to close it along with it.

6. Commands:

Commands are the sentences, which direct the person to carry out certain actions.

The use of commands can be employed for both understanding and production skills.

Commands can be used with the children, at all levels of language learning & they should

be from simple to complex. After a command is given, the child id expected to

understand the instruction and then demonstrate his comprehension by accurately doing,

as told. When the child is taught to command, he is said to develop some degree of

control over his environment, by using language as a tool.

Illustration:

Mother: Give me any one square from the table.

Child: Here, square.

Mother: Now give me a blue and red square from the table.

Child: Here, 2 square.

Mother: Thank you, can you keep the white square on the blue square and bring it to me.

Child: (does the action)

Mother: Yes. Good! Thank you.

7. Binary Choice:

Often, the parent or the clinician does not understand what the child is trying to

say, wither because the child is unintelligible or does not make sense with his choice of

word combination. The adult can often establish some limits on the childs possible range

of answers and can, in this way, have a better means of understanding the childs

response. By presenting the child with two or more possible acceptable choice, the adult

is narrowing the range of responses that he will have to figure out. It may be used

effectively to help the child compare and contrast language concepts and to stabilize new

language forms. The binary choice technique also helps in developing the syntactic and

semantic skills.

Illustration:

Child: Mom..eat.

Mother: What do you want to eat? Do you want dosa or idli?

Child: Want dosa

Mother: How many dosas do you want? One or two?

Child: Two

Pictures can also be presented to the child to elicit responses

(Picture of a child eating ice-cream is shown)

Mother: What is this child eating? An ice-cream or lollipop?

Child: Ice-cream

Mother: Yes, the child is eating ice-cream. Do you want a toffee or candy?

Child: Candy. Candy

8. Expansion:

Expansion is the technique of expanding or re-formulating the childs utterance

into an adult like form, either in terms of sentence structure (grammatically) or with

request to the meaning.

This technique provides the child greater accuracy either grammatically or

meaning wise. In this way, the listener more readily understands child.

By expanding the childs utterances to an adult like form the mother shows the

child how to get this specific message across more effectively and the mother/adult can

also determine what the child intended to say. Through this technique, mothers verbally

interact with their children.

Expansion is of two types:

1) Grammatical (syntactical)

2) Meaning related (semantically)

Illustration

Semantic expansion:

Child: Mummy, bus go.

Mother: That is not a bus. That is a lorry.

Child: Mom. Red, bicycle.

Mother: No, see the color. Its a yellow bike.

Child: Auto come

Mother: Oh! Auto has come. Lets go home.

Syntactic Expansion:

Child: Mummy, chapathi

Mother: Say, I want chapathi

Child: Mom, I wan. Chapathi. Daddy eat.

Mother: Yes, daddy is coming to eat now.

Child: Mummy, milk.. dress

Mother: Oh! No! The milk has spilt over your dress

Child: Dress. Wet

Mother: Yes. Dress has become wet. Come on, let me change the dress for you.

9. Semantic cueing:

In this technique, the mother or the adult gives meaningful cues to the child, so

that he can easily come out with the target or the required responses. This technique is

useful when the child has responded inappropriately or is at a loss to respond at all. It

provides the child the required stimulus that may elicit the target responses, it helps the

child to recall or retrieve a label, which he is made to express independently. It can also

be used to establish new words or concepts. The new information can be paired through

the cues to what the child already knows. It encourages the child to do some processing

to derive a response than merely telling him the specific response required.

Illustration

(A picture is shown)

Mother: What is this picture about?

Child: quietly sees the picture

Mother: A child is doing something with the ball

Child: He is playing

Mother: Yes, the child is playing with the ball. What are you doing?

Child: See pictures

Mother: Yes. You are seeing the pictures

10. Shaping:

Complex target behaviors need to be simplified, so that the child is able to learn

them easily step by step. In sequential steps, the components are put together to achieve

the final complex, integrated behavior.

Illustration

(Mother has a chocolate. The child sees it and stretches out his hand)

Child: Ch..ch.. um.

Mother: You want toffee?

Child: Ch.ch..tof.

Mother: Yes, say toffee

Child: T.top.topee

Mother: No say toffee dear

Child: Top..fee

Mother: Hm, once more say toffee

Child: Toffee

Mother: Thats correct, say mummy I want toffee

Child: Me wan. Topfee.

Mother: Say, I want toffee

Child: I wan toffee

Mother: WANT say it once again dear

Child: I want toffee

Mother: Very good, darling. Here take this toffee

11. Fading:

It is defined as a technique in which special stimulus control of target behavior,

created by clinician is reduced in gradual steps. While the same responses are

consistently evoked, the special stimuli are gradually withdrawn. Modeled stimulus is

faded step by step, till the response is strengthened. Initially the clinician models the

response with an appropriate level of vocal reliably; the clinician reduces the vocal

intensity. As the child begins to imitate the response reliably, the clinician reduces the

vocal intensity of modeling with softer and softer voice on successive trials until the

voice is completely faded. Manual guidance as well as pictures used can be faded

similarly.

Illustration

Mother: What is this dear? It is something which you eat and green in color

Child: (pause). Um. apple

Mother: See this picture. It is green in color and tastes sweet. You can see this in bunches

Child: Guava. No. gapes

Mother: Hm it is grapes. Say GRAPES

Child: gapes gapes.. sweet

Mother: very good. Now you can have this bunch of grapes for yourself

12. Sentence completion:

In this technique, an incomplete sentence is presented to the child and he has to

complete the sentence with an appropriate word. It provides as much or as little

assistance to the child as needed. It can be inflectional ending or a phrase. As the child

advances, this technique enable the clinician to reduce the amount of stimuli needed to

elicit a response can allow for the variety of responses to be acceptable.

A variation of this technique is to have the child begin a sentence with the

structures which he is learning and then allow the clinician to finish the sentence. This

presents information in a structured way to the child. It can be used across all levels of

language complexity, from the one word response level through more elaborate or

advanced multiword response levels.

Illustration

(The child is shown a picture of a play-ground)

Clinician: The boys are playing.

Child: Foot-ball

Clinician: the girls are playing.

Child: Kho-kho

Clinician: What are these old people doing? Sitting on a..

Child: The bench. Me sit mmmI sit

Clinician: Say, I will sit on the

Child: Chair!

Clinician: O.K. lets sit on the chair.

13. Error identification:

In this technique, the child is presented two sentences of any language structure.

The child has to identify the error in the sentence and based on his knowledge, he has to

put forth more a correct form.

Scientific and syntactic errors are introduced in the sentences and the child has to

correct the sentences. Semantic correction deal with the meaningfulness of the sentence

and syntactic correction deals with grammatical structure of the sentence. While the child

may not always be able to correct or accurately form a sentence, he may have some

knowledge of what makes the sentence the acceptable or unacceptable. Even though, the

child may not be totally adequate they do tell the clinician something about what the

child knows about the language, how much he is yet to know.

This technique is useful as a means of stabilizing a new language behavior that

has been acquired. Once the child knows what the language form is, and when to use it,

this technique provides the child to a means of sharpening his knowledge of how the

newly acquired form may be adopted. The child would be expected to identify where the

form was used correctly and incorrectly, thus improving his knowledge of the rules.

Illustration

Clinician: Is this sentence right? I go to the shop everyday

Child: No

Clinician: O.K. thats fine. Try to correct the sentence.

Child: I went to the shop.

Clinician: Yes. Good

14. Questions:

Its one of the best methods to obtain a response from an individual. Questions can be of

3 types.

1. Questions requiring yes-no response

Ex: Did you eat in the morning?

2. Questions requiring a naming response

Ex: What is that?

2. Questions requiring an open ended response

Ex: Where did you go yesterday evening?

In eliciting a language sample from the child, the open ended question tends to be

most effective type, as it requires more language usage than yes-no questions,

requiring a one-word naming response.

The open ended question allows the child several possible answers, whereas the

yes-no or naming type of question requires that the child respond with one specific

word which of course, helps the child who is limited in his expressive skills. The

open ended question not only gives the child the opportunity of responding with a

variety of appropriate answers, but further, it makes for a higher likelihood of

successful responses.

Illustration:

Clinician: When did u go to your uncles house?

Child: Yesterday

Clinician: How did you go?

Child: By bus

Clinician: Why did u go to your uncles house?

Child: See uncle

Clinician: What did u do there?

Child: Play games and ate biscuits

Clinician: Who all are there in your uncles house?

Child: Uncle, aunty, rohit.

15. Sentence re-arrangement:

This technique facilitates the childs activity to organize his words into a

meaningful utterance. Its useful for the child who has the ability for using one, two

word utterances to label persons, things and activities. This technique can facilitate

the child to see the order and relationship of these words in a sentence. The language

training program must aim, not only at encouraging children to link linguistic forms

and devices with categories of experience, but also helping them to improve on their

initial guesses about those categories when they are incorrect. This technique

provides the word from which the child can create his own sentence, by analyzing

relationships between these words and categories of experiences. This technique can

be used to develop many levels of language skill and is applicable to the development

of early 2-3 word sentence.

Illustration:

Clinician: What do you see in the picture, dear?

Child: Dog, boy

Clinician: Read the following words. Can you arrange them to describe this picture?

(Dog, pet, boy)

Child: The dog pet the boy

Clinician: No, No! The dog does not pet the boy. What does the boy do?

Child: The boy is petting the dog

Clinician: Yes thats good

16. Story Telling:

It can help the child to sequence ideas, to retrain information and to use particular

words, inflectional endings and sentence types. It serves as a type of structured

conversational speech. A story is told to the child and later on questions are asked.

These questions should require yes/no, naming, or open ended responses, depending

on the childs skills. The child is expected to make up a story himself, using a set of

pictures, arranged in sequential order. The child might ask questions to the clinician

abut the story. This technique is effective one for developing both production and

comprehension skills and it can be used to find out the childs syntactic and semantic

level. It is also used in stabilizing new language forms.

Illustration:

(The story of The thirsty crow is narrated to the child)

Mother: Did you understand the story dear?

Child: yes mama

Mother: What did the crow see?

Child: water!

Mother: Where was the water?

Child: In the jug

Mother: Why could the crow reach the water?

Child: Water . Mmm. below..

Mother: What did the crow do then?

Child: Put pebbles

Mother: what happened to the water then?

Child: Water mmm. Up.

Mother: Yes. Then the crow drank water

Child: The crow was happy mummy

Mother: Yes, the crow was happy after drinking water. Where did the crow go to?

Child: On tree

Mother: Yes, the crow flew away and sat on the tree

17. Categorizing:

It is useful in showing the child relationship between words. The child should

know the concept of each word and this technique helps the child to see the way words

go together, to make sense. It also facilitates the childs ability to identify the words in

ways, which makes sense conceptually. By categorizing words as doers, receivers or

actions for a sentence, the child has a better chance of grasping the meaning.

This technique is also useful in learning the syntax of a language. The grammatical

forms, like indirect and direct sentences, active and passive sentences, can be learnt. If

the child is able to categorize words by their function, she is more likely to comprehend

and produce meaningful sentences. This technique focuses on the childs attention

towards the function of different words and word classes. Thus, it prepares the child to

combine words into meaningful relationship in a structural complex level of language

development.

Illustration:

(Mother shows the pictures of apple, biscuit, toffees, plate, spoon, rubber, chalk piece and

pencil)

Mother: Can you see these pictures? Now can you name the things that you can not eat?

Child: Plate, spoon, rubber..

Mother: Those that you can eat?

Child: Toffee, biscuits, apple.

Mother: Yes. Fine. You know these words like eating, drinking, sleeping.tell you about

actions. Can you tell me a few more?

Child: Ah!...bathing, jumping, hopping, running..

Mother: Very good.

A NOTE TO THE PARENTS:

The techniques and illustrations outlined here suggest modifications that need to

be made in the type of conversations used by the adults while communicating with their

child. Follow these techniques and see your child chattering in a few months.

GOOD LUCK!!!!!

KUNNAMPALLIL GEJO JOHN

Note: This information took from other source, its really genuine