Guidance to Support SLD Listening Comprehension and

Oral Expression

SLD Executive Leadership Committee PresentationIASEA Conference

March 2012

SLD Executive Leadership Work Team

• Lisa Carriere, Vallivue • Stephanie Dahlke,

Oneida• Kim Graham, Bonneville

• Sue Shelton, Post Falls• Marnie Schell, Boise• Carol Treat, Post Falls• Gina Hopper, SESTA

• To provide the field with guidance to support the field’s work related to eligibility for Language Impairment or determining SLD with Oral Expression and Listening Comprehension.

• To review guidance documents to explain the context of the design.

• To have a Q/A format to have questions addressed from the team.

Glossary of New Terms

• Auditory Processing: The ability to perceive, analyze, synthesize, and discriminate auditory stimuli such as speech.

• Crystallized Intelligence: The knowledge and skills that are accumulated over a lifetime. This type of intelligence tends to increase with age.

• Expressive Language (Oral Expression): The ability to express wants and needs or thoughts and ideas in a number of different modalities such as speech, sign or writing.

• Language delay: The failure to develop language on the usual developmental timetable. This refers specifically to a delay in the development of the underlying knowledge of language.

• Language difference: When the primary language is not

English.

• Language disorder: Disorder that involves the processing of linguistic information involving grammar, semantics, or other aspects of language and may be receptive, expressive or a combination of both.

• Progress monitoring: A scientifically based practice that is used to periodically assess students’ academic performance and evaluate the effectiveness of instruction at regular intervals.

• Psychological processes: Brain processes, operations, and functions used any time mental contents are operated on or when information is perceived, transformed, manipulated, stored, retrieved, or expressed.

• Receptive Language (Listening Comprehension): The comprehension of language – listening and understanding what is communicated. It involves being attentive to what is said, the ability to comprehend the message, the speed of processing the message, and concentrating on the message.

• Specific learning disability in Listening Comprehension: Student does not make sufficient progress in response to interventions in listening comprehension combined with low achievement in listening comprehension, as well as, a pattern of strength and weaknesses in psychological processes that closely relate to listening comprehension (receptive language).

• Specific learning disability in Oral Expression: Student does not make sufficient progress in response to interventions in oral expression combined with low achievement in oral expression, as well as, a pattern of strength and weaknesses in psychological processes that closely relate to oral expression (expressive language).

• Verbal Comprehension: The ability to understand language through the receptive mode.

Shared Roles and ResponsibilitiesGeneral Education Teachers Special Education Teachers Speech-Language Pathologists School Psychologists Administrators

•Assist in selection of universal screening measures.•Serve as a member of intervention assistance teams.•Assist in assessing the need for a student to receive intervention in the area(s) of oral expression and/or listening comprehension.•Participate in the development and implementation of progress monitoring systems.•Participate in the analysis of student outcomes and interpret results of screening and progress monitoring to families.•Consult and collaborate with school personnel and parents to meet the needs of students in the implementation of the RtI model and subsequent evaluations if needed.•Take advantage of continuing educational opportunities.

Roles and Responsibilities: General Education TeachersTier 1:

• Teach with awareness of the language demands for oral expression and listening comprehension embedded within the curriculum.

• Consider the impact of cultural, linguistic, and economic diversity and make appropriate accommodations.

• Perform ongoing curriculum-based data collection and analysis aligned with progress monitoring and common core state standards.

• Make the initial contact with families when concerns about oral expression or listening comprehension arise.

• Refer to the SLP for possible language screenings that could be completed• Actively identify and address barriers to learning and make appropriate

adaptations/modifications as possible.• Engage in ongoing collaboration to address small group and individual student needs. • Consult with other professionals and parents regarding early intervention activities in the

classroom and at home.Tier 2:• Identify, implement, document, and analyze evidence-based interventions.

Roles and Responsibilities: Special Education Teachers

• Become familiar with the language demands of the general education curriculum at each grade level.

• Assist in assessing the need for a student to receive an intervention in the area(s) of Oral Expression and/or Listening Comprehension.

• Utilize their expertise in identifying a student with a learning disability to advise intervention assistance teams.

• Observe students in the instructional environment in order to help identify appropriate intervention strategies and accommodations, to identify barriers to intervention, and to help collect and analyze response to intervention data.

• Support colleagues through mentoring and close collaboration to provide consistency in documenting interventions and outcomes.

Roles and Responsibilities: Speech-Language Pathologists• Become familiar with general curricular goals and academic benchmarks, having an

idea of the language demands of the curriculum at each grade level.• Assist in assessing the need for a student to receive an intervention in the area(s) of

Oral Expression (OE) and/or Listening Comprehension (LC), utilizing their expertise in language, its disorders, and treatment to advise intervention assistance teams.

• Observe students in the instructional environment in order to help identify appropriate intervention strategies and accommodations, to identify barriers to intervention, and to collect response to intervention data. Please consider: Is attention a factor in the student’s ability to listen and comprehend the core instruction?

• Consult and collaborate with school personnel and parents to offer prevention activities and/or to meet the needs of students in the implementation of RTI model and subsequent evaluations, if needed.

• Evaluate the student’s relevant environmental, cultural, linguistic, and economic status and the impact of these factors on learning before a student is referred to special education.

• Know how to differentiate and explain the difference between SLD-OE/LC and Language Impairment (LI).

Roles and Responsibilities: School Psychologists• Engage in ongoing communication and consultation with administration, teachers, and

parents.• Identify systemic patterns of student need (e.g., persistent difficulties among

kindergarten and first grade students in basic phonics skills).• Assist in assessing the need for a student to receive an intervention in the area(s) of

Oral Expression and/or Listening Comprehension.• Use expertise in the area of specific learning disabilities and psychological processes to

advise intervention assistance teams.• Observe students in the instructional environment in order to help identify appropriate

intervention strategies and accommodations, to identify barriers to intervention, and to collect response to intervention data. Please consider: Is attention a factor in the student’s ability to listen and comprehend the core instruction?

• Evaluate the student’s relevant environmental, cultural, linguistic, and economic history and status and the impact of these factors on learning before a student is referred to special education.

• Evaluate the student’s cognitive functioning and the psychological processes that relate to oral expression and listening comprehension.

Roles and Responsibilities: Administrators

• Provide opportunities and resources for continuing education and training in RtI, SLD, Oral Expression and Listening Comprehension.

• Provide support for progress monitoring individual students.

• Enforce policies and procedures for referrals and for tracking struggling students.

More Information on Roles and Responsibilities in the RtI Process

http://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/slp/schools/prof-consult/rtiroledefinitions.pdf

The website also included roles and responsibilities for reading/literary coaches, parents and families, and social workers.

Sources included: • American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)• Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD)• International Dyslexia Association (IDA)• International Reading Association (IRA)• Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA)• National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)• National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD)• National Education Association (NEA)• School Social Work Association of America (SSWAA)

Interventions -Oral Expression & Listening ComprehensionSocial Language Development

Teach the student to resolve conflicts by talking to peers.

Teach the student to turn to a partner for a content-related conversation.

Teach the student to follow rules for asking questions in class (i.e. raising their hand).

Teach the student to stay on topic of conversation and/or discussion.

• Formal Progress Monitoring• Informal Progress Monitoring• Developmental Stages• Common Core Standards – Future

Progress Monitoring

Progress MonitoringOral Expression & Listening Comprehension

FormalProgressMonitoring

Other Progress Monitoring

• Informal Progress Monitoring• Developmental Stages• Common Core Standards

(Speaking & Listening Standards)– The standards require that students gain, evaluate, and present increasingly

complex information, ideas, and evidence through listening and speaking as well as through media.

– An important focus of the speaking and listening standards is academic discussion in one-on-one, small-group, and whole-class settings. Formal presentations are one important way such talk occurs, but so is the more informal discussion that takes place as students collaborate to answer questions, build understanding, and solve problems.

Individual Evaluation Planning Form

1. Demographics

2. Description and Areas of Concern(s): Oral Expression and/or Listening Comprehension

3. Evaluation includes assessments (New or Existing) and evaluation tools/tests for the areas of:

A.Language B.Achievement C.Psychological Processes D.ObservationE.Developmental, Health and MedicalF.Additional Measures

(**Complete Referral and Consent for Assessment Forms - Provide parents with Procedural Safeguards)

Individual Evaluation Planning Form

4. Preponderance of Evidence

A. Evaluation meets the procedures outlined in Chapter 4, Section 5 of Idaho Special Education Manual 2007, Revised 2009

B. Evidence of low academic achievement as demonstrated by two subtests

C. Evidence of insufficient progress in response to effective, evidence-based instruction/intervention

D. Pattern of psychological processing strengths and weaknesses that align to area of low academic achievement (OE or LI)

Individual Evaluation Planning Form

E. Student’s learning difficulty is not primarily the result of: 1) A visual, hearing, or motor impairment 2) Cognitive impairment 3) Emotional disturbance 4) Environmental or economic disadvantage5) Cultural factors6) Limited English Proficiency

F. Scores 1.5 standard deviations or more below the mean, or at or below the 7th percentile, on a standardized measure in either receptive or expressive language.

F. At least two procedures, at least one of which yields a standard score, are used to assess receptive language and/or expressive language.

Individual Evaluation Planning Form

G. Adverse Effect

H. Specially Designed instruction

5. Summary of Results: The student does or does not meet eligibility criteria for special education in the area(s) of:

• SLD-Oral Expression (OE) • SLD-Listening Comprehension (LC) • SLD-OE & LC • Language Impaired • SLD (OE &/or LC) and Language as a related service

(Complete Eligibility Report for Specific Learning Disability or Language Impaired)

Sample Eligibility

• See handout

Sample IEP Goals

• See handout

Special Education Statewide Technical Assistance (SESTA)

Center for School Improvement & Policy Studies, BSU

Gina Hopper Katie Bubak Director Statewide

Coordinator ginahopper@boisestate.edu katiebubak@boisestate.edu

www.idahotc.comwww.idahotc.comTraining and Technology for Today’s Tomorrow

• Website to link school professionals and parents with special education training opportunities and resources across the state

• Supported By:– Idaho State

Department of Education (ISDE), Special Education

• Project Team: – Cari Murphy– Shawn Wright

Contact Information:

Please write your questions for this presentation on the SLD FAQ page found on the Idaho Training Clearinghouse at…

http://itcnew.idahotc.com/specific-learning-disability/sld-faq.aspx