How to help our secondary teachers support teenagers with language disorders at school

• language disorders – particularly in comprehending language – have a high persistence rate into adolescence (e.g. Clegg et al. 2005);
• teenagers with language disorders are at risk of poor academic progress, bullying and behavioural problems, like acting out in class (e.g. Snow & Powell, 2004).  Lots of teenagers with language problems give up, drop out and end up in unskilled, poorly paid jobs.  And teenagers with language disorders are well over-represented in the youth justice system;
• in places like New South Wales, Australia (where I work), teenagers don’t have meaningful access to public speech pathology services.  Unlike some other places, we don’t have speech pathologists in our public high schools;
• most teenagers with language disorders are expected to cope with the mainstream curriculum – despite their well documented problems with oral and written comprehension, written expression, new word learning and understanding the so-called “hidden curriculum” – teacher expectations of how they should behave when listening to others and speaking in class; and
• busy teachers have a whole class to teach, often with limited support from over-stretched and under-resourced special education staff.

• break down large amounts of information into smaller, visually distinct sections;
• add graphics and icons – use technology like Google Images and smart boards to explain key concepts visually;
• explain instructional vocabulary (like “devise”, “analyse”, etc.) in plain English that makes it easier for the student to identify what precisely is required of them (e.g. “write about”);
• put questions on the same page as the text to make it easier for students to cross-reference and check their work; and
• explicitly teach these 6 evidence-based reading comprehension strategies.

2. Oral language tips:

• be explicit about instructions – don’t expect students to infer what you want them to do from the context;
• make instructions short – break multi-step instructions into separate steps;
• give students more time to process and answer verbally;
• rephrase key information in plain English, and repeat it regularly; and
• face the class when giving instructions.

3.  Tips to help students process information:

• get the whole class involved in breaking down complex texts, e.g. with mind-maps that summarise key facts;
• provide visual planners (like this one) to help show students how to structure tasks;
• outline the sequence of tasks to be covered in the lesson with visual cues; and
• involve the whole class in creating visual aids (charts, posters, etc) to assist information processing and retention.

• choose, say, “10 key words” that are essential to understand the given topic and teach them directly;
• embed vocabulary in activities such as creating visual symbols;
• conduct whole-class interactive tasks to break key words into root words, prefixes and suffixes; and
• use these tips to deepen comprehension of key words and aid retention.