Friday Feature: Teaching Children With Language Delays to Say or Sign More: Promises and Potential Pitfalls

Photo credit: Division for Early Childhood

FRIDAY FEATURE: Today’s article is from the Division for Early Childhood’s practitioner journal, Young Exceptional Children:

Teaching Children With Language Delays to Say or Sign More: Promises and Potential Pitfalls

(Lederer, 2015)

My guess is that almost any early intervention provider has taught a child and family how to use the sign “more” for a child with language delays. Lederer (2015) discusses the strategy of teaching the word/sign “more” and its research rationale, according to the following perspectives: semantic (words and their meanings), pragmatic (how words are used to communicate in conversation), and concept representation (using pictures or signs). (p. 1)

While those of us who have used the strategy with families recognize the benefits and have likely communicated these benefits to families, did you know that there are some potential disadvantages?

Table 1 in the article summarizes the promises, potential pitfalls, and recommendations for the strategy in light of the semantic, pragmatic, and concept representation perspectives. Potential pitfalls include:

• Semantically, the use of “more” as a general all-purpose (GAP) word and/or sign can cause communication to break down.
• Pragmatic: “more” cannot be the first turn in a conversation.
• Concept representation: child lacks the motor skill to use the sign or child does not understand the concept

(Lederer, 2015, p. 5)

The table also discusses recommendations to address each of the pitfalls.

Access the article at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1096250615621358

DEC members can access YEC articles for free. Please note that we are unable to post the entire article here due to copyright restrictions. If you are not a member, a few options include:

• Public library database
• University/college library database
• Your agency might have an organizational subscription to the journal
•  Your supervisor or administrator might be a member of the Council for Exceptional Children or Division for Early Childhood