Sometimes getting started with an initial sound cue will help retrieve a word. If a teacher or parent knows what word a child is searching for, he or she can provide the initial sound of the word. Note that I said initial sound, not initial letter. If the child is searching for the word “mitten,” provide the sound “mmm”. Cuing with “it starts with the letter ‘m'” is not as helpful. This sort of “on the spot” cue can be helpful if the target word is known to the listener. Once the word is retrieved, anchor it: reinforce it with the 5-step procedure recommended by Dr. Diane German (please refer to my post of November 4). Ask the child to “tattoo” it in his memory. Ask for a “word finding 5” : say the word 5 times, use it in a sentence, and get a high 5.
The initial sound cue can also be used as a strategy to cue one’s self. I ask the kids to silently go through the alphabet. Think of the beginning sound of each letter. That will sometimes jump start retrieval. The research into “dense phonological neighborhoods” supports this strategy. A variety of studies demonstrate that although it is more difficult to discriminate words from dense phonological neighborhoods, it is easier to retrieve such words. In a nutshell, dense phonological neighborhoods are groups of words that sound similar.
Please remember that different strategies help different students. Have your speech therapy clients try this strategy. Does it help? There seem to be a variety of different kinds of “word finders.” For a child whose word finding difficulty appears to be phonologically based, this can be quite helpful. I was surprised by the results of a very informal survey I took among the adults I work with: I asked how they helped themselves come up with a word on which they were stuck. A number of them mentioned think of the beginning sound. In the “Silly Sally Always Draws Fuzzy Pandas” acronym, the “F” stands for “First sound.” So have your students go through the alphabet, prompting themselves with the possible sound their target word may begin with.
There seems to be a developmental maturity that is needed for this strategy to work. A certain level of phonological awareness is needed. This would be a great topic for further research!
Please share your experiences! Let me know what strategies work for your clients.