Is there a name for this?

[TracyP]

My ds (10 yo) often mixes up words. For example he will say:

 

Can I stay up early to watch football?

 

I am going to tell Dad a question when he gets home.

 

Should I put my potato under a plate?

 

He easily self corrects if I point out these errors. Words just don't seem to come out of his mouth the way he plans them. Sometimes the words are correct, but they come out in the wrong order.

 

You can see this in his reading, too. When he is reading aloud, he will sometimes read stone as rock or large as big - basically always replacing the written word for one that is more common in his vocabulary.

 

He has an expressive/receptive language delay, but it seems like therapy always focuses on the things he missed in testing. I'm really trying to zero in on the issues that lead to day to day language difficulties. So like my title says... Is there a name for this? And/or any remediation ideas?

 

 

 

[Plink]

It is a form of disfluency, similar to stuttering.  Many boys go through some form of this.  Their mouths are moving faster than their brains, and sometimes the wrong words fill in the gaps.  Some kids spend a lot of time saying "um" or "well" and others just swap words.  

 

The general consensus is to treat it like stuttering.  Avoid drawing attention to any mis-spoken words.  Also, check the language patterns in your house.  Make sure that you are making eye contact during conversations and not interrupting.  Slow down your own speech, so that he doesn't feel like he needs to rush his own to express his thoughts.  

[kbutton]

Depends on the reason sometimes:

 

https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/issues-involving-spoken-language/why-is-my-child-having-trouble-finding-the-right-word-to-say

http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/Aphasia/

 

Have you heard of this program? It might help with some of these things...your son might get that syntax requires an adverb, preposition, or noun (examples you gave), but not really be able to differentiate one from another quickly. I think this program is supposed to help with things like this (we have tried it a bit for auditory processing): https://www.superduperinc.com/products/view.aspx?pid=tpx27704#.WZjc-CiGMdU

 

It has multiple levels.

 

I don't know if it would cover stone vs. rock when reading, but the brain does funny things sometimes. Maybe he thinks of a picture when he reads, and then when he switches back to the word, it's changed. 

 

Maybe he would enjoy activities with synonyms--listing lots of words that mean the same things and then putting phrases with them that show how they are alike and different. Or maybe shades of meaning activities: http://products.lakeshorelearning.com/learning/Shades-Of-Meaning

 

[PeterPan]

My ds doesn't do this much, and he does have language issues. He doesn't have the significantly low processing speed like my dd. My dd (straight ADHD, low processing speed, poor word retrieval) did it more, though not to the degree of your ds. So I tend to think Plink is probably spot on in her advice. 

 

Fwiw, usually testing and the speech therapy materials correlate tightly. It's not like say IQ testing where the test is sort of broad. The language testing is usually very tight and it corresponds directly to materials. In other words, if it's fixable, they test it and fix it.

 

Now there *are* some materials for word retrieval, like Think, Talk, Laugh!: Increase Verbal Processing Speed and Language Organization Skills which is exceptional but maybe a bit too hard for him yet. I really like it and tried it with my ds, but it's just too hard for him just yet. But maybe you'll have better luck. There's also some stuff they'll do with common phrases and words that go together, but I'm not sure you need to do that. It's not that he doesn't understand them. It's more that when he goes to retrieve them, in the moment, the wiring glitches up. 

 

There are worksheets you can do for word order. My ds finds them hard, so I think that's in that category of something you can work on and actually fix or make better. Even if it's scrambling due to processing speed, you still could make it go better. I haven't done it yet, but I've been seen sets of words (like at Lakeshore Learning) and I thought it would be fun to make fun sentences using them. They could be color coded by part of speech or not. I'm turning up all kinds of things on amazon under scrambled sentences. I have an old Francis Schaeffer workbook. The Scholastic workbook I picked up at the teacher library has some. So it's a pretty normal thing to do and wouldn't hurt anything. Might or might not help, but it wouldn't hurt.Scrambled Sentences, Grades 1 to 2  This is the one I've done with ds, but it's oop. I really liked it as an activity and want to do more with him this year.

 

Have you asked your SLP what she recommends?

 

I know I've seen stuff for working on words that pair together, etc., and I'm just drawing a blank. What I'm doing with my ds now is working on things like opposites. I picked him up a workbook on antonyms/synonyms. It's stuff he wasn't really hot on. For a long time, he didn't get that saying the same word twice did not mean they were different. So even if it doesn't directly solve your problem, you can still target some of the language stuff going on there (understanding opposites) and see if maybe working on them improves how those words and types of related words are stored in the brain, which might make them pair and retrieve more easily. In fact, I think that's something Think, Talk, Laugh does.

[TracyP]

I have mentioned this to his SLP in the past but haven't been given any advice. I will try again when his speech therapy starts again - we have been waiting forever to get cleared by insurance and all that fun stuff.

 

We started Think, Talk, Laugh just last week after seeing it mentioned here. His processing speed is actually pretty good, but I hope that program is going to be really helpful with all its word association activities. I'll continue with that for now, then check out some of these other resources. Thanks everyone!

[PeterPan]

Ooo, I'd be interested to hear how TTL goes! I think any time you come upon something and it's hard, that's a good sign. Let's you dig in and find things you need to work on. Processing speed should be in your eval report, because it's part of IQ testing.

 

I'm trying to connect things here, but don't you have the other thread asking about social anxiety and whether meds would help him talk with people? So you've got this thread, where people are saying he needs calming strategies, and you've got the social anxiety thread. You're not saying it that way, but I was trying to find the common connector, since they're the same child, kwim?

 

So is he doing anything for calming strategies and anxiety? You're uncertain about meds, but meds are not the only option. He could to Mighteor, which is new heart rate monitor software, which would work on his interoception and awareness of his own state. He could do other mindfulness strategies (body scan, etc.), which bump EF by 30% and can improve that regulation. He could do CBT with a counselor. 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[Crimson Wife]

Thanks for mentioning TTL, I had missed the earlier recommendation & just ordered it. From the samples it looks like just the type of things my DD needs to work on.

[PeterPan]

TTL was a stretch for my ds. I did it a few days but got sidetracked. It was pretty hard for him, hard enough that I was having to break it up into much smaller chunks than the author envisions. So then it's something where you go ok, could we build a bit more foundation or get more maturity or something... But yeah, the author does a great job of bringing together a lot of things that definitely need to be worked on. She's got a LOT in there! For only $15, it's the deal of the century really.

Edited August 21, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[TracyP]

Ooo, I'd be interested to hear how TTL goes! I think any time you come upon something and it's hard, that's a good sign. Let's you dig in and find things you need to work on. Processing speed should be in your eval report, because it's part of IQ testing.

 

 

His processing speed is good (100) according to the IQ testing.

 

I really love the things TTL is working on, but wow it's hard. I am debating if I should set it aside for now. The exclusion exercises are a HUGE struggle, and it's starting to make him shut down completely when I bring the book out. I think I'm at least going to take a break until after Labor Day, since we're going on vacation that week.

 

I'm on a search for other ways to work on those skills in the meantime. I ran across this(semantics language therapy) today, so I'm going to try to incorporate a session like it into our day. I also have Primarily Logic. That has some word relationship/categorizing exercises, so we can keep working on some similar exercises.

[Crimson Wife]

I guess it's reflective of my DD's "splinter" skills and the amount of language intervention she's had over the past 6 years, but most of TTL is actually the right level for her. The synonyms are too advanced but the rest of the tasks are the kinds of things she's been doing in ABA and speech therapy. Her therapists have been working on listening for negation so the exclusions exercises are perfect.

 

I just got my copy yesterday so I haven't started it with her yet but I like it so much I am going to offer to get her auditory-verbal therapist a copy. There really aren't that many books out there aimed at late elementary students. Most programs are aimed at preschool & primary grades.