Expressing ideas

Difficulty in using age-appropriate vocabulary 

May be presented as the use of immature/less sophisticated and specific/expressive words. This can lead to difficulty in conveying the intended meaning. Learning, remembering and using new subject or topic vocabulary will be especially difficult. Attempts to use new words may be inappropriate if not fully understood.

Read this in conjunction with the 'Difficulty learning, understanding and retaining new concepts and vocabulary' section above. 

Strategies to support:

• Build on receptive vocabulary strategies outlined. 
• Gap fill as well as teach selected vocabulary in support of the curriculum. 
• Ensure the child verbalises new words at every available opportunity. 
• Build activity contexts in which you and the child will use the target word/s repeatedly. 
• Draw and label, or position labels on the drawing. 
• Give simple definitions for the child to retrieve the word you are defining. 
• Play pairs games and their definitions.  
• Teach simple synonyms and build. 
• Have 'boring' to 'interesting' competitions finding better words for simple words, spoken by the adult about a picture. For example, playing to exploring. 
• Give pictures to support the child to build a sentence in which the target word is included. 
• Work in word groups to heighten awareness of types of words. For example, targeting verb expansion, or adverbs. 
• Use Widgit symbol conceptual pictures in bingo games without written words to trigger word retrieval. 
• Keep logs. Record when the child had to put an omitted word in the sentence from a selection, or without a selection present, matching a plausible word to the context. 
• Give cloze exercises where the child had to put an omitted word in the sentence from a selection, or without a selection present, matching plausible word to the context. 
• Set challenges to use words in their writing without prompting.

Difficulty applying words to new contexts

A child may present this by using valid words but in an inappropriate context. It may be presented as a qualitative difference in word learning as well as a quantitative difference. 

For example, the word 'tranquil' may have been taught but then applied as 'tranquil grass' rather than a 'tranquil scene'. It is obvious the concept has been partially learnt but their understanding is narrow. (Actual example). 

Strategies to support:

• Interpret this as a sign that the child needs more explicit teaching of vocabulary. 
• Pre-teach vocabulary before exposure to it in the classroom context. 
• Focus on the teaching and activation stages of word learning more thoroughly.

(Word Aware Programme stages of teaching vocabulary described above: Select - Teach - Activate - Review) 

• Praise for use of the word and support to use the word more appropriately. 
• Encourage to verbalise understanding of the word and add to this. 
• Supply multiple examples or stories where the word is applied. 

Difficulty defining words, learning word definitions and retrieving them

A child may present by using non-specific words such as 'thing' and 'stuff' and convey only the vaguest meaning of the target word. They may present as having a weak ability to provide a category word to start their definition. For example, "A chair is a thingy you sit on". They may also have difficulty retaining set definitions within the curriculum, such as adjectives and habitats. 

Strategies to support:

•  Develop category word knowledge (Furniture, habitats, buildings). 
• Play category games to reinforce and increase competence and knowledge. 
• Teach what a definition is and that all definitions should start with a category. 
• Practise defining words by starting with a category and saying anything else you can about it. 
• For object words practise adding in a function, a location (where you find it), a key feature and any other details. 
• Practise using this definition framework until the format is internalised. Use visuals to support at first. 
• Move on to teaching abstract word definitions teaching a small range of categories and building (events, qualities, processes). 
• Being able to define words supports better word knowledge retention. 

Difficulty remembering names

This may be presented as a failure to learn the names of key adults and peers, or a struggle to retrieve them. This could also create a barrier to making relationships. 

Strategies to support:

• Assess whether names are known but can't be recalled or are not even known. 
• Create a lotto game of photos and play the game on a regular basis. Encourage imitation at first. 
• Create a photobook limited to a small number of children or key adults at first. Build on this. 
• If possible use a talking book where the name can be recorded and the child presses a button to hear the name if they cannot recall it. 
• Play name games in a social group.
• Give cues such as the first sound of a particular name, or clap the syllables. 
• Provide opportunities for names to be verbalised frequently to reinforce them.  

Difficulty in explaining things that have happened, or telling a story 

Presenting as having difficulty sequencing ideas and being coherent. Individual words are clear but it might be difficult to make sense of what is being told to you, and to understand because spoken ideas are jumbled or incomplete. 

Strategies to support:

• Allow extra time for the child to express themselves. 
• Repeat back in a positive way to provide a correct model to affirm they have been understood. 
• Accept any form of communication such as accompanying gestures. 
• Encourage the child to talk about the day's events in sequence.  
• Help them structure a spoken story or recount by saying "tell me again what happened first" and "then what happened". This will help the child to organise chunks of information. 
• Teach to order sequencing cards that make up a story for them to re-tell using the pictures as prompts. Start with 2 pictures and build up. 
• The child can re-tell their favourite stories with some exact repetition and some of their own words. For example, 'Going on a bear hunt' uses repetitive phrases such as "going to catch a big one". 
• Read a story. Go over the story supporting the re-tell and ask what happened next. 
• Ask the child how to do something, such as make a cup of tea, or clean your teeth. Later move on to explaining the rules of a game. 
• Use visuals such as "wh" cue cards. 
• Use templates to break the story into sections. 
• Start to tell a story, then let the child take over. 
• Older children might listen to a YouTube clip which they then have to write up as a newspaper report. 

Difficulty using sentences 

A child may present this by using short sentences, often with words missing or in the wrong order. This can make the sentences sound muddled, incorrect or unusual. 

Using only simple sentences means only simple information can be expressed. 

Strategies to support:

• Show what they have to say is important by giving undivided attention to what has been said.
• Say what you have understood to check what you have understood, and validate the child's contribution. 
• Recast giving good model and extend. 

Difficulty using grammar

This could be presented by using immature or incorrect sentence structures. There may be particular difficulty with using verbs, and features of grammar that indicate tense. 

There is often difficulty learning grammar rules that do not form a regular pattern. For example, plurals that do not end in 's', such as children and mice. There is also difficulty using words that connect ideas together, such as 'because', 'so', 'until' and 'while'. These allow for more complex ideas to be expressed. 

Strategies to support: 

Support can be given that is implicit: meaning that grammatical support is given without specific explanation.  

• Imitation: A target structure is given with pictorial support where the adult models and the child imitates. Support is gradually reduced until the child can produce the structure to similar stimuli given independently, maintaining the target structure.  
• Modelling: This alone only requires the child to listen. It merely directs the child’s attention to the target structure. The modelling is given as a specific intervention.
• Recasting: Here the support is designed to be non-intrusive and conversational. Play or verbal activities can be designed to increase the chances of the child using the target structure, and when the incorrect form of the target structure is used by the child the adult follows it with a recasted correct structure.
• Combined Approaches: Evoked production, modelling and recasting can be effective in generalising newly learnt rules and structures.

Support can be given that is explicit: meaning that a rule or target structure is specifically taught through explanation, using words demonstration and visual means. The approach is meta-linguistic. 

Comparisons might be made with the child's structure and the correct structure. These approaches are based on the hypothesis that children have had grammatical difficulty learning the rules implicitly, therefore they need explicit teaching of the rules. 

Examples include:

• Explicit teaching of individual rules.
• Colour coding: colours can have a positive impact on memory and attention, and can be used to highlight grammatical features. 
• Shape coding: uses a visual coding system to show how words are put together in sentences to develop understanding and use of grammar. The primary focus is on spoken language, but it can also be used for written language. It uses colours and shapes. 

A combination of both explicit and implicit support can be given.