Word searches: on the use of verbal and non-verbal resources during classroom talk

Word searches: on the use of verbal and non-verbal resources during classroom

talk

Introduction

Searching for words is very common in children. There are reports that this
phenomenon is experienced by a quarter of those who receive therapy services as a
result of language impairment (Dockrell, Messer, George and Wilson, 1998) and
possibly half of children who have learning disabilities (German, 1998). Children
with word finding difficulties are characterised by poor performance in both word
retrieval as well as semantic fluency (Dockrell, Messer and George, 2001), which
contrasts with relatively intact comprehension of word meanings (Messer and
Dockrell, 2006). As far as explanations are concerned, difficulty in finding words is
considered to be related to impoverished semantic representations (Dockrell et al.,
2001), less well established phonological representations and poor processing speed
(Messer and Dockrell, 2006). Given the cognitive nature of the difficulty, an
intervention programme by a speech and language therapist would aim to strengthen
the child’s form-meaning links. Indeed, there is some evidence that both semantic and
phonological training techniques can be successful in assisting children’s word
retrieval (Wing, 1990; Hyde-Wright, 1994; McGregor, 1994).

How children with word finding difficulties deal with the demands of discourse is less
well understood. Given that the child’s social and educational experiences take place
in discourse contexts, this urgently needs addressing. During children’s narrative and
whilst interacting with others, there are systematic reports of associated behaviours

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