Speech Therapy for School Age ChildrenSpeech Therapy (ST) addresses many areas of concern for those with Williams Syndrome.
Individuals with Williams Syndrome have feeding problems as infants, develop communication skills slower than normal, and may continue to have language-based difficulties for many years. Although they often develop an excellent expressive vocabulary and are able to learn new and unusual words quickly, comprehension often lags behind. Additionally, social pragmatics, nuance and conversation skills continue to require intervention for many years.
Speech therapists should work collaboratively with a student’s IEP team, and family (especially to gain input on challenges the child is having in daily living skills/doing homework etc,) throughout the screening, evaluation, program planning, and intervention process. Speech therapists work with a child one-on-one, in a small group or directly in the classroom. |
1. Direct Instruction
Using the student's verbal strengths to remediate difficulty they have processing nonverbal information.
Stay away from figurative phases
Individuals with WS tend to be very literal thinkers. Try to stay away from instructions and statements that may have multiple or confusing meanings. Example; “It’s raining cats and dogs.” While the typical person will interpret this to mean that it is raining very hard; the individual with WS will be quite confused and will expect it to literally rain cats and dogs and question if that is possible. Another example may be; “Get your feet wet.” Again the typical person would interpret this to mean try something new and get used to it. The individual with WS would understand this to mean that he or she is being instructed to literally get their feet wet. Provide One-Step Instruction until the child understands multi-step instructions Individuals with WS have difficulty understanding multi-step instructions. For example if a child hears, "Get out your paper and crayons and put them on your desk then write your name at the top". This is four individual steps that the child must process and put into action. Typically after one or two steps the child is lost. Only after the child has mastered one-step should you introduce two step, then proceed to three step and so on. (Thomas & van Herwegen).
|
|
2. Social Stories
Students with WS often have difficulty reading nonverbal cues which can lead to inappropriate social reactions.
Social Stories can be used as an easy way to understand the correct social responses to situations and develop the individual’s social skills. Despite the fact that in some experimental settings individuals with Williams Syndrome appear to have relatively good social skills, a number of research studies show that individuals with Williams Syndrome have problems with establishing friendships and experience social difficulties, such as disinhibition and social isolation (Stojanovik, 2008) It has also been shown that individuals with Williams Syndrome tend to chatter incessantly, ask socially inappropriate questions and talk to themselves. Students with Williams Syndrome often fail to monitor the reactions of a listener. Frequently, they are excessively verbal and expressive. Other behaviors affecting communication and social interactions include interrupting people, perhaps by speaking out of turn or by moving back and forth between people engaged in conversation, standing too close, or touching too much. Consequently, other people may choose not to interact with them, may avoid them, or may even ostracize them (Foss, 2001). The reactions of others tend to leave them feeling isolated, lonely, and sad. They usually want to learn appropriate social behaviors, and they generally respond positively to instruction that leads to improved social behavior. Social Stories are individualized short stories that are used to model an appropriate social interaction, behavior or skill by describing a relevant social context to the one the child is struggling with. The story breaks down the challenging social situation by providing the student with other people’s perspectives and an appropriate response to the situation. The goal of the story is to improve the child’s understanding of the social situation which may lead to a change in behavior and decision making in future events similar to the story (Gray, 2000). Social Stories can be used to discuss future occurrences and "tell a story" about what is going to happen. These can be personalized to include pictures of the student, pictures of places or sources of anxiety. This will allow the student to talk about his or her fears and the source of their anxiety and provide a sense of familiarity with the situation, event or place. Ask your student to "read" the story to you and it may provide a calming effect for them. Below are examples and links of social stories and how to make them. |
|
|
|
ONLINE RESOURCES
REFERENCES
CONTRIBUTORS Speech Therapy written by Amelia Hutchinson, Simon Fraser University. Cite as:
|