How can you distinguish between a child with a word retrieval problem and a child who has a reading difficulty? You hear a child reading orally. He makes repeated errors and substitutions. But is he truly experiencing difficulty decoding the words or is he experiencing word finding difficulties?
The quick and dirty way to differentiate the two difficulties is to ask the child to “show me the word,” or “underline the answer.” If you ask the child to “tell me” or “read it to me,” his errors could be rooted in a retrieval problem. The difference was highlighted in a 2008 article published in Advanceweb.com, volume 18, issue 2, page 6. In the article, Dr. Diane German of National-Louis University and Dr. Rochelle Newman of the University of Maryland warned that children with oral language difficulties are sometimes misplaced into remedial reading classrooms because oral reading tests “misread” children with word-finding difficulties. The researchers suggested using silent reading tests instead of oral ones. A discrepancy between oral reading scores and silent reading scores is the first indication that a weakness is in retrieval, not in decoding.
So what can we do as SLPs to identify these kids? Encourage silent reading tasks to follow up oral reading tests. Ask a child to “show me where the answer is,” “underline the correct word” or “circle the letter that makes the /b/ sound.”
A second characteristic of children with word finding problems is that their reading errors are frequently on words that have common phonological patterns. This is similar to the difficulties they have in oral language. As SLPs, we can have a significant impact on children by making sure their identification and treatment is targeted to their true needs. Collaborate with teachers and reading specialists – share your expertise!