Language and communication

Some people have language difficulties.  This can be for lots of different reasons.

Difficulties may be in one or more of the areas below:

  • Understanding (receptive language) 
  • Getting your message across (expressive language)
  • The way you use language socially 

Difficulties in understanding or expressing yourself may include:

  • Remembering what has been said 
  • Processing what has been said (you may need extra time)
  • Learning and understanding new words (this is called your vocabulary)
  • Following instructions
  • Understanding difficult sentences or when too much information is given at once 
  • Finding the words that you want or need (you may use words like ‘stuff’ or ‘thing’ instead)
  • Responding or knowing what to say
  • Using long sentences, grammatical words or structures. For example, you might mix up the order of the words in a sentence or miss out the endings of words like ‘ed’ or ‘s’. 
  • Explaining things or telling a story (you might miss out the detail, or tell parts of the story out of order)

Difficulties in the way you use language socially may include: 

  • Knowing when, and how, to join in a conversation.  It may be hard to find a good time to join in or you might talk at the same time as someone else 
  • Knowing how much information to give and staying on topic
  • Repairing conversation if things go wrong
  • Understanding when words or phrases have more than one meaning. For example, a “green-house” could mean a house that is green, or a glass house where you grow plants. Similarly, a “bat” could be something you use to hit a ball or a flying animal that comes out at night
  • Inferring what someone means. Sometimes this is called “reading between the lines.” This is when you use clues and things you already know to help work out what someone means.  For example, if someone say’s “whose shoes are they in the middle of the floor?” You might infer that what they mean is, can the owner of those shoes pick them up and put them away
  • Understanding non-literal language for example when someone wants some help but says ‘give me a hand’ or understanding jokes or sarcasm
  • Understanding the tone of someone’s voice and how this can help to understand the meaning of what they are saying 

Language difficulties in any of these areas, receptive (understanding), expressive (getting your message across) and social (use of language) can also impact on:

  • Friendships and relationships
  • Emotional wellbeing (how you feel)
  • Behaviour and managing emotions (for example becoming frustrated)
  • Literacy (reading and writing)
  • Education and employment 

If you have language difficulties, one of the best ways you can be supported is for the people around you to know what it is that you find difficult and adapt their approach, this can also be called making a reasonable adjustment.   

Being able to ask for help is also important and a great way to get the support you need. There are lots of different ways to ask for help and no single way will work for everyone. Some people ask for help by putting their hand up in class, other people find it easier to ask in a small group, one to one, or use a visual prompt like putting a card on their desk or turning their pencil case upside down.  Some people can find it difficult to ask for help at all and some people may find it difficult to know when they need help.

In these situations, you need the people around you to ‘notice’ when you are finding something difficult and ask you if you need help. This could be to check your understanding, explain something a different way or show you something. 

Below are some suggestions to help the people around you to adapt their communication. It may be helpful to print these and put them somewhere where they can easily be seen as a reminder of ways to support language and communication. 

Useful tips:

Gaining attention 

  • Use the person’s name to get their attention before giving instructions/information

Vocabulary knowledge

  • Check vocabulary knowledge and use easier words as needed e.g. instead of ‘examine’ or ‘predict’ you might say ‘look at’ or ‘guess’
  • For those in education, pre-teach and revise new/key curriculum vocabulary (in class try to set aside 5 minutes at the beginning of lessons to check/teach vocabulary knowledge (this will help the whole class!) 
  • When teaching new vocabulary, give meaning links (who, what like, where, when, what for, looks like etc) and sound links (compare to other similar sounding words etc). For example, astronaut has three syllables and can be chunked into astro (meaning star - linked to astronomy) and naught (meaning sailor - linked to nautical, aquanaut, aeronaut). A helpful lesson starter can be to ask people to say the word multiple times and in different ways (say it, whisper it, shout it etc).
  • Model the use of vocabulary across different contexts. This will help develop understanding but also model sentence structures that can be used to answer different questions e.g. ‘the student was examining the leaf to look at different cell structures’ ‘the doctor examined the patient to identify the cause of their pain’ ‘they used a magnifying glass to examine the clue more closely’

Following instructions 

Some people can quickly become overloaded with too much language 

  • Speak clearly 
  • Chunk information, giving instructions containing one or two key words at a time e.g. “get the plates” or “read the paragraph, then answer the questions”
  • Keep sentences/instructions short and to the point
  • Keep vocabulary simple 
  • Pause between sentences/instructions to allow time for processing 
  • Repeat or rephrase information as needed
  • Keep word and time order the same, for example say ‘finish your lunch and then go to the shop’ rather than ‘before you go to the shop, finish your lunch’

Allow extra time

  • To process information and instructions and,
  • Time for thinking about and giving responses

Check understanding 

  • Ask for instructions to be repeated / shown / modelled back to you so you can check understanding
  • Agree a strategy to be used if the information has not been understood

Use visual support (especially when lots of information or words are used) this could include: 

  • Using technology such as an interactive whiteboard
  • Providing written instructions, these can be ticked off as they are completed
  • Using pictures, or real objects, to support written information
  • Demonstrating / showing how to do tasks
  • Using interactive role-play

Understanding what you mean 

Avoid the use of non-literal (abstract / figurative) language.  Some people can be literal in their interpretation of language.  This can lead to confusion, frustration and / or upset when language does not mean what it says, for example:

  • Phases such as ‘pull your socks up’ or ‘turn over a new leaf’
  • Using sarcasm or making jokes that are difficult for the person to understand

Breaks

  • Offer regular breaks, people cannot focus all the time
  • Provide clear ways for the person to ask for breaks for example a break card on the table 
  • Use your knowledge of the person, as well as the context, to think about how frequently breaks should be taken
  • Try to offer breaks before the person disengages

Understanding what you mean

Understanding what you mean

Avoid the use of non-literal (abstract / figurative) language.Some people can be very literal in their interpretation of language.This can lead to confusion, frustration and / or upset when language does not mean what it says, for example:

  • Phases such as ‘pull your socks up’ or ‘turn over a new leaf’
  • Using sarcasm or making jokes that are difficult for the person to understand

Use visual support (especially when lots of information or words are used) this could include:

  • using the interactive whiteboard
  • technology
  • providing written instructions, these can be ticked off as they are completed
  • using pictures, or real objects, to support written information
  • demonstrating / showing how to do tasks
  • using interactive role-play

Check understanding

  • ask for instructions to be repeated / shown / modelled back to you so you can check understanding
  • Agree a strategy to be used if the information has not been understood

Allow extra time

  • to process information and instructions and,
  • time for thinking about and giving responses

Breaks

  • Plan regular breaks, people cannot focus all the time.
  • Use your knowledge of the person to think about how frequently breaks should be taken.

You may need to plan a break before the person does something to ensure a break happens e.g. pushes their book on the floor / walks out to indicate they have had enough.

Conversation/Social scripts

Conversation can be difficult for different reasons.  Sometimes it is difficult to ‘keep up’ with conversation particularly if you have difficulties with understanding language, or to join in if you have difficulties expressing yourself.  This can be even harder when there are more people. Sometimes it can be tricky for people to know how to start, maintain or end a conversation.  It can also be tricky to know when to join in or what to do when things go wrong. Using the strategies described can help as well as pausing and offering opportunities for people to join in.  You can also think together about how and when to join in a conversation.  

Social scripts can be helpful when thinking about starting, maintaining and ending conversation and provide helpful statements to use if things go wrong. For example,

  • Conversation starters such as ‘Hi, how was your weekend’ or ‘Hello, did you have a good day at work?’ It can be helpful for the person to have opportunities to practice using conversation starters with family or trusted others before using them with less familiar people.
  • Follow up statements, for example ‘Oh that sounds nice, do you think you will go again’ or ‘it sounds like you had a busy day, what have you got planned this evening?’ These can be trickier as you cannot predict the way another person my answer.  It is useful to practice maintaining conversations at other times for example when watching TV, pause (only sometimes) and think about how characters manage conversations, what they could say next. 
  • Statements to end a conversation e.g. ‘it has been lovely meeting you, but I have to go now’ or ‘I need to go to catch my bus, see you again soon’ 
  • Statements to use when they are not sure or need more time to think for example ‘hang on, ‘I’m confused,’ ‘can you explain that again please,’ ‘can I think about that for a minute’ or ‘can I think about that and get back to you?’

Explaining things or telling a story 

When explaining something or telling a story. We provide information out the characters (who), location (where) time (when) and events (what happened).  We sequence the information in a logical order to help the listener understand. 

When people have difficulties explaining something or telling a story, when talking or writing, it can be useful to use strategies such as story boards or narrative grids. 

There are several different types of story boards/narrative grids available to use and it’s important the person finds one that works for them. Below are some examples.

Using the grids, you can:

  • Write down a few words or draw / sketch ideas for each section.
  • Use a mind map to think of different descriptive words to use in your story 
  • Initially create one sentence for each heading, you can then expand your story by adding more detail.  For example providing more description about the character or location or describing what a character might think or feel.

Template 1 uses the headings: 

  • Who?
  • Where?
  • When?
  • What happened?
  • The end

Template 2 uses the headings:

  • Characters
  • Location
  • Start
  • Build up
  • Climax

Give praise / positive feedback

Ensure feedback is specific to the person, the development of their skills and / or how it has helped you to understand their needs. For example, “I really liked your question about XXXX, it showed you understood the topic and thought about what might happen next” or “It was great that you told me that you didn’t understand.  It meant I could think about how I explained the task and try another way”