FAQs: Task-based goals vs. strategy goals, scaffolding for semantics and syntax, and going from decontextualized to contextualized

This session is a Q & A I did in the Language Therapy Advance Foundations member’s group relating to how to support students through semantic study and working on complex syntax. 

I addressed the following FAQs:

“How do I help students who struggle to define and describe words without making them prompt-dependent?”

“How do I make semantic study more contextualized?”

“What’s the difference between a “task-based” goal and a “strategy-based” goal, and which type of goal should I be using for language and executive functioning?”

I also provide examples of goals for observable behaviors vs. goals that focus on the process of getting to that behavior or end output. 

Highlights of this session include:

✅Using the explicit instruction framework: “I do, we do, you do.”

✅Using pauses, reflective questions, sentence starters, direct repetition, and declarative statements (hint: we should be using a blend of all these things.)

✅Where we SHOULD use explicit, repetitive, “decontextualized” tasks in therapy for purposes of cognitive priming. 

✅Why students need a blend of structured and unstructured tasks (from decontextualized to contextualized). 

This session came from a Q & A I did in Language Therapy Advance Foundations, my program that helps SLPs create a system for language therapy. You can learn more about Language Therapy Advance Foundations here: https://drkarenspeech.com/languagetherapy/ 

The following resources were mentioned in this session:

The Explicit Instruction Framework by Anita Archer and Charles Hughes: https://explicitinstruction.org/

This video on scaffolding sentence combining for younger students: https://youtu.be/LDLYlZgqpQU

The strategy-based goals for executive functioning came from information from the School of Clinical Leadership, my program that helps related service providers put executive functioning intervention in place. You can learn more about the School of Clinical Leadership here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/clinicalleadership

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