#SpeakUpSalford

Staff
& Professionals

How to help young people with Vocabulary and Word Finding Difficulties

 

What are vocabulary and word finding difficulties? 

Children with word finding difficulties struggle to find the right word to say at the right time. They will often take a long time to think of the word they want to use or choose a word that is wrong for the topic they are talking about.

 

Children with vocabulary difficulties often have limited vocabulary in general topic areas or struggle to remember the meanings of new words that they learn.

 

General strategies 

  • Children with vocabulary/word-finding difficulties may need longer to put the words together to answer a question. Please be patient and give them time to respond.

 

  • Children with vocabulary/word-finding difficulties often appear to wander off the topic or ‘talk around the houses’. You can help by gently reminding them about the conversational topic and steering them back on course.

 

  • If the child is struggling to tell you something you can prompt them by asking more specific questions:
  • Who was there?
  • Where were you?
  • When did it happen?
  • What happened?
  • What happened at the end?

 

  • If the child is struggling to recall a specific word then you can help by:
  • Giving 2 alternatives e.g. is it a guitar or a violin
  • Saying the initial sound of the word e.g it starts with g
  • Prompt the child to think about the category/group that the word belongs to e.g are you thinking of an instrument?
  • Asking questions about it?  what size is it? what does it look like? What do you do with it? Etc

Discussing the word in this way will often prompt the child to remember and be able to say it.

 

Specific strategies 

  • When teaching new vocabulary as part of a lesson you can help by creating a display for the class or word map (Elklan).

This can be made into a ‘dictionary’ for the child as the information can be kept and re-visited. This can contain lots of pieces of information about the word that will help the class/child to retain it and recall it on future occasions.

 

  • What type of thing is it? (an animal, an object, food etc.)
  • What does it look like? (colour, size etc.)
  • What is it made out of? (fabric, flesh, metal etc.)
  • What do you do with it?
  • Where do you find it?
  • When do you use it?
  • Draw a picture of the word.
  • What is the first letter of the word?
  • How many syllables are there in the word? Write a sentence with the word in it.
  • Say a sentence with the word in it.

 

Resources and Activities 

Registered Office: Middleton, Cowling, Keighley, W. Yorks,

BD22 0DQ, United Kingdom
Phone: 01535 631 346

www.blacksheeppress.co.uk

 

Useful Websites

  • www.rcslt.org  This is the website for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
  • www.talkingpoint.org.uk  This is a useful website for parents and teachers.  It contains information and advice.
  • www.afasic.org.uk  This is a parent led organisation that offers information and advice.  There are areas on the website for professionals also.

 

 

 
NEWS/ EVENTS

Examples of What We Offer

Early Years

Our Early Years team follow the Greater Manchester Early Years Delivery Model (EYDM). They work in close partnership with health, local authority and social care colleagues to support early identification of speech, language and communication needs to ensure the right support at the right time for children, parents/ carers and settings.

School and Post 16

We work within with settings to identify and support communication needs. This could through training staff, modelling and coaching, whole class/ small group input and 1:1 interventions. There is a wide virtual training offer available for Salford schools. Please speak to the school/ college Link Speech and Language Therapist if you have any questions. 

 

 Enhanced Services

The Enhanced Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) Service allows settings to buy-in additional support. This is bespoke to each setting and might involve universal, targeted and specialist input and training. For further information, please contact  salttraining@nca.nhs.uk

 

I would also like to say that I am very impressed with the work Speech and Language Therapist is doing in school as well as the professional way she deals with my parents and her helpful advise to my staff. I believe credit where credit is due.

School staff

I have found working with the speech therapist very beneficial. She helps me to set achievable goals for the children by coming into the nursery and interacting with the children and getting to know them. She talks to us on a regular basis and updates us on what targets she would like the children to achieve next. She teaches us new strategies to use with the children which we find really useful, we try to incorporate this into everyday activities. Parent’s often comment on how much they appreciate the advice from our therapist. They also comment on how much progress their children have made since visiting her. We don’t know what we would do without her!

Anneka Williamson, Children’s Centre Practitioner

My child absolutely LOVES coming to see you, you are so good with him. We are extremely grateful for all of your care and support. He is counting down the days until we can come again.

Parent

I just wanted to send a quick email to say thank you for the training you delivered for us this afternoon, it was so useful and informative. It was great to have further training that was bespoke to Early Years and built on what we had done in the whole school training. We're excited to start implementing it for our children.

Early Years Teacher

EPs and SALT frequently work together during Multi agency meetings to clarify individual concerns and strengths. We develop joint objectives, that are regularly reviewed and evaluated to improve outcomes for children and young people. Parents and teachers comment that this work is effective and helps to increase their understanding and knowledge. Jointly we increase schools capacity, through conversations and training, to meet the needs of their pupils.

Joanne Snee- Educational Psychologist

I am new to the role and I have found all members of the team extremely helpful and have gone out of their way to support me.

School SENCo

This is great and I am so appreciative of your support. We have nothing but fantastic things to say about the Salford SALT team and the support that you have given to both of our children.

Parent