Specific Language Impairment or SLI affects 10% of the population. In any pre-school class of 30 children, there would be at least 3 children with SLI. Typically these children have difficulty: comprehending instructions, telling stories, using correct grammatical forms, understanding jokes, with reading comprehension and with written expression. While children with normally developing speech and…
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Designing Literacy Programs for Academic Success
The article in the WA Sunday Times on January 29th 2012 regarding the outcomes of the first Literacy and Numeracy Tests for Pre-Primary children was concerning. In particular, the finding that under half of WA Pre-Primary children were able to re-tell a simple story with a beginning, middle and end was anxiety provoking. Story Retelling…
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Why do I ask a speech pathologist about my child’s speech and language development rather than my doctor?
A speech pathologist or speech and language clinician specialises in the assessment and remediation of all types of human communication disorders. When a speech pathologist fully assesses your child they will look at how your child is able to form words and say them, whether they use correct word order and grammatical endings, whether they…
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Phonological Awareness -PA
PA (Phonological Awareness) is something that has received a lot of attention over the past few years. Some people think phonological awareness - the awareness of sounds, sound patterns and syllables in words is oral language but it is only one aspect of oral language. Any PA work must be combined with other language aspects…
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