My husband and I spent the weekend with our almost 8 month old granddaughter in Washington, DC, and her parents. Such fun!! Observing a young child’s emerging language skills is like watching a miracle unfold. It was fun to watch the intricate communication between her and her parents, both verbal and nonverbal. Word finding was not high on my priority list, but language development certainly was!
There’s nothing like a new city to bring out word finding difficulties in the best of us! Think of Emancipation Proclamation, Smithsonian Institution, and National Mall. Of course you know what those things are, but you might be hard pressed to retrieve the words quickly on demand. Word retrieval is primarily impacted by (1) recency of use and (2) frequency of use. So when we’re in a different environment and retrieving words we haven’t needed for a while, even typical language users sometimes have more difficulty.
The same thing happens with holiday vocabulary: I explain to my students that even though they know what a wig, a skeleton, and a vampire are, they may need some hints to “refind” these words in their memories, because these words may have been tucked away since last Halloween. Likewise, our students’ conversational speech may give us cues to their retrieval difficulties when we ask them to talk about topics they haven’t discussed recently.
This is good to remember when we are trying to elicit language samples. We can learn a lot about a child’s articulation, vocabulary, and syntax by asking about a birthday party or his/her favorite sports team. Those topics are not as likely to give us good information about word retrieval, however: such topics may be highly rehearsed. Instead, try asking about a movie they have seen or a book they are currently reading (“Oooh, what happened to Olaf? Why?” or “What do you think will happen next?” ). The trick is to get them to formulate some language they haven’t practiced recently. Remember that a word retrieval difficulty is NOT the same as a vocabulary deficit: I am talking about efficiently retrieving (“finding”) a word that is already in their receptive vocabulary. Try to avoid highly rehearsed or highly ritualized conversations.
What else affects retrieval? Word finding is definitely impacted by stress. Even hormones may play a role. And we all know that retrieval becomes more difficult as adults age (sigh). This weekend was a reminder that when we are very tired (think young parents with a new baby) we may not retrieve words as readily as at other times. Everyone experiences word finding difficulties sometimes. When we are identifying children with word finding challenges, we are looking for patterns. We are watching for those red flags that make us wonder why they are having expressive language problems that aren’t explained by a vocabulary, syntax, or social language deficit (or temporary sleep deprivation). Some “word finders” are very slow to come up with specific words, yet others name items very quickly but have to correct themselves. And don’t forget to watch for those nonverbal secondary behaviors such as looking up to the ceiling, snapping fingers, or hitting one’s thigh with a clenched fist. All these are clues that a child may benefit from word finding intervention. Look beyond the standardized test scores: Use your professional instincts. Is the child frustrated in his or her attempts to explain a sequence of events clearly? Is his classroom performance impacted? Is his budding social life impacted? Does he raise his hand to volunteer, only to say, “I forgot” or “nevermind”?
Again, on my references and materials page, I have posted observation checklists for both classroom teachers and for parents. Those checklists provide some additional examples of behaviors to watch for. Keep your eyes and ears open. In my next post, I’ll suggest some standardized tests that can provide more clues to identifying word finding, or word retrieval, difficulties.