Anyone dealing w/ Mixed Expressive-Receptive Language Disorder that's not also dealing w/ ASD?

[KnittyNurse]

My 7yo son has MERLD and SPD but does not have autism. It's difficult to find literature on either diagnosis, and most of what I do find talks about kids who are also on the low end of the spectrum.

 

Anyone here have experience teaching kiddos with MERLD? I'd love to find someone with experience to share!

[PeterPan]

You probably already know this or have grappled with it, but labels change and things overlap.  I would encourage you to read widely, across lots of labels, and use anything that works from any label.

 

Because people float in and out, your best way to find specific MERLD threads is to do a google site search.  So you could enter into your google bar "merld site:welltrainedmind.com" and see what pops up.  Then, once you find someone who posted about it, then try using the board search engine to limit to posts by that user on a specific board or using google site search and including that person's username plus some terms and site:welltrainedmind.com

 

Your other tip of the day, if you haven't already done this, is to go to Super Duper Inc or Linguisystems or some of the other ST places and search recommended materials by category.  That's how I find things.  Just go with your gut.  

Edited October 19, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[Crimson Wife]

You might have more luck searching for the terms "Specific Language Impairment" or "Developmental Language Disorder". My child with MERLD does not have SLI, but the majority of kids with MERLD have no additional diagnoses. It's around 6% of girls and 8% of boys having SLI while only around 2.5% of boys and 0.5% of girls have autism.

 

Here's a link to a good overview article that includes references to research literature on SLI.

[Crimson Wife]

One thing I learned recently in my Language Assessment & Intervention course is the importance of building up a child's oral narrative abilities. Research has shown that oral narrative abilities at age 5 predicts reading comprehension ability at age 9. So we're working really heavily right now on building oral narrative skills.

 

Here's a free template for working on teaching the parts of a narrative.

[PeterPan]

I got the book Nurturing Narratives at the last workshop I was at.  

[AliR]

Yes that is DD14.  Her language scores are really low, but come with the really odd package that the higher level language skills are better than the basic skills.  Specific Language Impairment is the best description we have found for the issue, but we have not found much help.  As you say, a lot of language support materials are directed towards ASD and a lot of these are directed toward the non-verbal end of the spectrum.

 

One big key for us was to really hit reading early and hard, as once you can read you are exposed to a great deal of modelling of language.  One big disadvantage is that it makes a lot of curriculum materials and teaching styles inaccessible - hence homeschooling for us.

[PeterPan]

The Grammar Processing Program

 

Ironically, my ds wasn't reading AT ALL until we started the program I linked above.  I think his language was low enough that he wasn't understanding anything he read, meaning why would you.  And that's with a 99th percentile vocabulary and tons of audiobooks!  Obviously his diagnosis isn't MERLD.  He has ASD and crunchy low language that responds to intervention.  Some people are saying read to bring the language up, and for us it was just the inverse, bringing the language up to be able to read.  And that series (GPP) really is terrific and is easy to implement.

[Sugarfoot]

Yes, it co-exists with dyslexia here. Interestingly, and i don't know if this is specific to the "dyslexic" brain or not, when something is presented in a picture rather than words, it is not only easier to understand, but also easier to express about. For example, when a therapist/teacher reads a small paragraph and asks the student to write something about it, what's written may be 2 very short, subject/verb sentences. But when a picture is shown and then given the same prompt, a long, very creative story will emerge. It's interesting, for sure, and I'm sure it's incredibly frustrating for the student. One thing that helps here is the idea of "forming pictures in your mind" when writing (or speaking) and then describing the scene. In my experience, this works for them in a way in might not for NT thinkers, who may only be able to write (or speak) about the physical scene when doing this. 

 

I'm not sure I'm describing this well! It's challenging, for sure. I also think it's helpful to read aloud lots of things that are rich in relationship-type interactions where the author describes facial expressions, emotions, etc.

[KnittyNurse]

Wow! You're all a wealth of information and experience and I'm glad to know you're here.

 

We've had a late start to our school year and we just switched insurance plans, which means DS7 had to be formally discharged from the clinic where he had been receiving therapy and we'll have to start again with fresh evaluations after his yearly check-up in December. I think I'm going to use the time between now and then to teach him and do more of my own research so I've got plenty of feedback for his therapist. 

 

Thank you all for your help!

[PeterPan]

Lecka would know better, but a response starting from picture vs. a response starting from words is a step ABA goes through.  It's a known issue and something they look for.

 

Kitty, that sucks that he has to be without care for a while!  It will be helpful to you to get fresh evals, definitely.  You could demand a full ASD eval, mercy.  I've found as a homeschooler the challenge was getting enough people (besides me and dh) seeing the behaviors to be able to fill out the forms.  They were seeing him in short little chunks or in preferred settings.  So that's something to think about, how you can use this time to get him in with people who can fill out those forms.

 

You'll also find it useful if you can cajole them to do complete language testing, like the CASL or CELF.  The more detailed, the better.  You can use that info and the subtest breakdowns to help you as you work with him.  And maybe read the fine print on your insurance and see what you can fight for, etc.  Sometimes practitioners will work backward, giving a diagnosis to get you access.  

[lizlatorre]

Yes, my DS13 has MERLD and SPD. His short term memory is really bad, but once a concept makes it long term memory, it sticks. In addition to all the great advice above, I found Visualizing and Verbalizing by Nancy Bell to be helpful; it deals with the difficulty of forming pictures in the mind of what is being read. I don't use a Lindamood Bell trained tutor, but our SLP and I both incorporate the principles into all he reads. Finally, the biggest help has been finding an SLP who had experience with school age kids with MERLD but not ASD. We have to drive 45min to her, but she has been priceless!!