[Listen Again] The Relationship Between Phonics and Language Comprehension with Tiffany Hogan

Episode Transcript
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Melissa (00:01):
Language comprehension is understanding spoken or
written language.
It relies on processing lots ofthings Decoding vocabulary,
syntax and more Backgroundknowledge, and text structures
play important roles too.

Lori (00:16):
All students benefit from language comprehension
experiences like read-aloud,academic talk and interactive
writing.
Today we're talking withresearcher Tiffany Hogan about
what you can do in yourclassroom to support all
students in strengtheninglanguage comprehension.
Welcome, teacher friend.
I'm Lori and I'm Melissa.

(00:37):
We are two literacy educatorsin Baltimore.

Melissa (00:40):
We want the best for all kids and we know you do too,
our district recently adopted anew literacy curriculum, which
meant a lot of change foreveryone, lori and I can't wait
to keep learning about literacywith you today.

Lori (00:58):
Hi everyone.
Welcome to Melissa and LoriLove Literacy.
Today we are talking all aboutlanguage comprehension.
We can't wait to talk aboutthis important topic.

Melissa (01:10):
And we have Tiffany Hogan here today to talk about
language comprehension, and sheis the director of the Speech
and Language Literacy Lab and aprofessor in the Department of
Communication Sciences andDisorders at MGH Institute.
You see, I had to take a breaththere.
There's so many good things andreally exciting also a podcast

(01:30):
host of the See, Hear, Speakpodcast.
So we're so excited to have youhere today, Tiffany.
Thank you for having me.

Tiffany Hogan (01:38):
Yeah, welcome, we can't wait.
It's a little different to beon the other side of the mic.
I bet.

Melissa (01:47):
All right.
So we're going to dive right in.
Are you ready to dive in?
Ready, ready to go?
So we love that we're talkingabout language comprehension
with you today.
We know that we see the simpleview of reading a lot and we see
those two sides of the readingrope, we see the word
recognition, we see the languagecomprehension.

(02:08):
And we just want to first startby asking you what is language
comprehension and what goes intoit?

Great question.
So language comprehension isunderstanding the language that
you're hearing in yourenvironment.
So if it's spoken language,you're hearing people tell you
stories or give you directions.
That's the language you'rehearing In the simple view of
reading.
The language comprehensionportion primarily relates to the

(02:36):
ability to understand thelanguage that's created by the
printed text.
So when you read to yourself,you have the inner voice that
you hear.
Or if you read aloud, thenyou're hearing the external
voice.
But it's comprehending whetheryou're hearing it internally or
external hearing andcomprehending that language.
Language comprehension isactually not limited to spoken

(02:57):
language.
Though signing, then if they'reunderstanding the signs, then
that's also a form of languagecomprehension, because you're
comprehending the message from aform that's being created,
whether that form is themovement of hands or spoken
language.
Now, there's a lot of componentsthat go into language

(03:17):
comprehension.
It is a complex beast and weknow that language comprehension
starts developing from birth.
There's even some really coolstudies showing that it starts
to develop in utero, as fetusesare listening to the language
that's in the environment aroundthem and when they are born,
there's some cool studiesshowing that they can pick up on

(03:38):
some of the parameters of thatlanguage and can even detect
some of the familiar voices.
So language is reallydeveloping from utero.
Now, language is made up of acouple of different components.
So I always like to think that,you know, we have the simple
view which is taking thatcomplex reading comprehension
and boiling it down to twoprimary components.

(04:01):
We do the same thing withlanguage.
We take the complexity oflanguage and we boil it down to
three primary components.
The do the same thing withlanguage.
We take the complexity oflanguage and we boil it down to
three primary components.
The first one is related toform, so that's the sounds of
language and that's calledphonology.
And then the next one is thecontent of language, and that's
like words and syntax andmorphology.
And the last one is the socialuse of language and that's like

(04:25):
what we call pragmatics.
I can talk a little bit more aswe get to it about what we
found as related directly tolanguage comprehension in
service of reading comprehension, but that's an overall view of
the complexity of language.

Melissa (04:40):
Can I ask you a quick question that just popped in my
head?
I know I feel like I just reada blog where the terminology was
linguistic comprehension andthen I also have seen, because
it's like the LC in the simpleview of reading.
I've also heard people saylistening comprehension.
I'm just curious are they usedinterchangeably, those terms, or

(05:00):
do they have actual differentmeanings?
It can be very confusing.

I'm so glad you asked me this question because
as a scientist, first andforemost, I apply everything.
All my answers are going to berelated to data.
So we actually did a study toexamine this.
So the yeah, so some of it,yeah, some of it's.
You know, historically speaking,that you know some of the early
studies called it linguisticcomprehension.
Then it changed the languagelistening.

(05:24):
But what we did in our studywas we looked at different
measures of languagecomprehension versus listening
comprehension.
Now, language comprehensionmeasures are related more to
like, for instance, listening todirections and answering them
or being told to, you know, domulti-step kind of things?
Do multi-step kind of things?

(05:46):
And then listening comprehension, on the other hand, that's
really been operationalized ashaving a child listen to a story
and then answer questions.
So those are different,slightly different tasks, and so
we wanted to see, you know, arethese all tapping into the same
ability?
And when we did that withchildren, what we found is that
it tapped into the same ability.
So it was all just one kind ofreservoir of language knowledge.
So I use them interchangeablyand I have data to show that.

(06:11):
That's okay.
But I do actually preferlanguage comprehension because
it represents a broader view ofwhat's going into that construct
as opposed to listeningcomprehension, which is really
that listening to a story andanswering questions.
So I'm really glad you askedthat and I actually, when I give
talks I have a slide on itbecause I got asked that
question so much and I thinkit's an important one because as

(06:32):
a language pathologist you knowwords matter.
So I'm glad we clarified that.

Melissa (06:37):
Yeah, thank you, and we're always afraid we're going
to say the wrong one, you know.

Totally.
Now you can confidently useinterchangeably and just be like
.
You know.
This is there's data.

Lori (06:46):
I'm just going to say LC, yeah, and then everybody can
guess what I mean.

Perfect, that's fantastic.

Melissa (06:54):
That'd be a language task in and of itself.
So we wanted to ask you aboutthe relationship between the two
.
Like we already brought them upat the word recognition and the
language comprehension, youknow they are separate in all of
these different visuals andgraphics that we see, so can you
talk a little bit about therelationship between them?
Absolutely.

So I've had the privilege of working on
longitudinal data sets where Iam able to assess children with
a large battery of assessments,usually when they're quite young
, starting in preschool, andthen testing them every year,
every other year over time, andthese have been funded by the
federal government and it'sgiven us a window into the
relationship between these two,looking at the data and the

(07:36):
individual differences inchildren, and what we find is
that there is a definite overlap.
It's, you know the graphics,you see where they're separated.
It would actually be betterrepresentation if they were like
two circles or Venn diagramswhere they were overlapped,
because we do see that they havea large shared variation and
that's been known for some time.

(07:57):
But it's almost like you lookat the glass half empty, half
full, like people have just kindof ignored the half full part
where they're overlapping,acknowledging it in the data
sets and, you know, representingit on the graphs, but not
really talking about it.
But this is a great question tothink through and a recent
study actually addressed thisand I thought, oh, this is great

(08:17):
because we've been, you know,seeing this for so long but we
haven't really explicitly lookedat it.
And so a study that was done byYoungsook Kim and that was just
published this year, in 2023,she did look at the overlap
between word reading andlistening comprehension and she
wanted to see you know whatexplains that overlap.
Like what is that?
And what she found is that, notsurprisingly, executive

(08:41):
function explains some of thatoverlap as a kind of an
additional factor, and alsosomething called morphological
awareness, which is really anawareness.
We talk a lot aboutphonological awareness, so
phonological awareness and theawareness of sounds, but
morphological awareness is theawareness of the individual
units of meaning, likerecognizing that the S at the

(09:02):
end of cats makes it plural,like recognizing that the S at
the end of cats makes it plural.
And so those are the twofactors that really connected
word reading and listeningcomprehension.
You can kind of think aboutthat even in the classroom when
you think about, you know,understanding a child's language
comprehension, understandingtheir word reading ability, that
tells you how well they'llcomprehend text.
But on top of that, also havinga better sense of their focus

(09:24):
of attention, executivefunctioning and their language
awareness is another factor.

Melissa (09:30):
Yeah, I was going to ask you to explain the executive
function a little bit.

Yes, yeah, that's great.
You know what.
It's really great to ask thatquestion because executive
function is a complex beast andit is.
There's a lot of discussionabout how you measure it.
You know what, what do you doto measure it and people measure
it in different ways.
So executive function is theactual definition is it's a set

(09:53):
of general purpose controlprocesses that regulate your
thoughts and behaviors.
So it's a more domain, generalkind of cognition that involves
working memory.
So being able to hold somethingin memory and manipulate it,
like we do when we ask childrento do phonological awareness
tasks, for instance.
That's a type of manipulation Alot of times.
A common one you hear about isreversing digits, so asking

(10:17):
children to listen to a set ofdigits like 1, 2, 8, 10, and
then they're asked to reversethem.
So they have to hold them inmemory and reverse them.
Another way to measure executivefunction is inhibition.
So you're asking children toinhibit a response.
So maybe they'll see a seriesof letters, one at a time, or
pictures, and then you ask themto not push a space bar when

(10:38):
they see an A, for instance.
So they push it every time theysee a letter except for A.
So you have to like inhibitthat response and then
attentional control and that'smore of your focus of attention.
And a lot of times there's somepretty cool studies looking at
this, like card sorting, whereyou ask kids to start sort cards
by color versus by the symbol,which you know.
I call this the UNO task, insome ways right, and so this is

(11:01):
a way to get at like attention,like focus of attention.
Are you focusing on the color,are you focusing on the symbol?
And that's you know we can do.
Stroop tasks are similar, likeread the, you know, read the
word that spells a color.
Like read the word green andthe word green might be spelled
in blue.
So you have to inhibit one orthe other.
So these are ways to get atexecutive function.

(11:22):
We think of executive functiona lot other.
So these are ways to get atexecutive function.
We think of executive functiona lot, you know.
I think practically like canthe child organize their
materials, can they clean theirdesk out, can they get from one
place to another and keep aschedule and be on time?
But the way we think about itin terms of scientific analyses
and measurement is much more ata basic level of, you know,
trying to tap into some of thoseprocesses that lead to the

(11:46):
functional outcomes of executivefunctioning.

Lori (11:49):
Not to go too much on a tangent here, but this is
something I don't know a lotabout, so I have a ton of
questions about it.
Okay, so that first example, Ican kind of go with the other
ones that you gave.
That makes sense to me.
But that first example the 1, 2, 8, 10, and we would have a
child or a person say them inreverse, how is that not

(12:12):
memorizing?
Like, how is that executivefunction and not memorizing?

That's a great question and actually I love
this tangent because a majorityof work I have done has been on
language comprehension, but Ialso have been working with
colleagues for now for over adecade looking at working memory
and how that relates to wordreading and language
comprehension.
So we think a lot about this andI think that you're hitting on

(12:36):
something that's so importantand that is it's very difficult
to separate out constructs, likeyou know.
I would say, how does thatrelate to the content of numbers
or how does that you know?
How can you separate languagecomprehension from working
memory?
It's very, very difficult to dothat and I think there's a lot
of debate and it really goesback to this first question of
the overlap between language andreading.

(12:58):
What we often see in all ofthese tasks is an overlap with
something else.
So, even though that task iscalled working memory, others
might call it something a littledifferent if they focus on the
variation between the content,knowledge or the experience of
the child.
So it's a great question and Ithink there's not an easy answer
to it.

Lori (13:18):
Okay, it's actually like this whole conversation, this
whole sidebar, is making methink about all of the
individual education plans thatI've read, and they really do
have elements of executivefunctioning that overlap with
language comprehension.
Can you say more?

(13:38):
Because you're nodding and Idon't know what else to say
about that.

Yes, I, oh my goodness, you are just hitting
on something that I have so manydiscussions with my students
and educator collaborators andthink through, because you know
you might hear, for instance,and it makes a lot of intuitive
sense.
A lot of what we hear makesintuitive sense and what I've
learned as a scientist issometimes your intuition is
right and sometimes it's not,and so we have to look at the

(14:03):
data and one of the examples isyou often hear well, the child
has ADHD or some type ofexecutive function difficulty.
Maybe it's not even diagnosedADHD, so we really can't measure
word reading or languagecomprehension because we won't
really get a true measure of itright, because they'll be too
distracted.

(14:23):
But actually we have a studycoming out on this where we
looked at a large sample ofchildren and we measured their
executive functioning, wemeasured their working memory
kind of those two kind ofcomponents that we talked about,
the kind of the inhibition partversus the working memory part
of how to manipulate sounds andnumbers.

(14:44):
And then we also looked at wordreading and we looked at
language comprehension and wereally wanted to see is this
true?
Like, can you really not get agood, accurate read of language
comprehension if a child hasdifficulty in executive
functioning and actually it'snot true at all what we find is
that there's a normaldistribution of those abilities
across all of these children,such that you can, you know, we

(15:05):
found several children who haveADHD, for instance, who had
really good word reading andgood working memory, and vice
versa.
So just because a child has ADHDdoesn't mean they're
automatically not going to dowell on a language comprehension
test.
They are separate constructsthat use separate brain
processing mechanisms, and soit's important to think that,
even though they are related,that Venn diagram does overlap,

(15:30):
that there is some uniquevariation as well.
So it's probably just pullingfrom lots of different areas of
the brain at the time.
But I definitely think thatit's important to look at all
these, you know, just look atthe individual differences in
children across all of theseabilities, because that is what
will lead to what I've referredto as a child's cognitive,
linguistic fingerprint.
So every child is truly uniquebecause all these streams are

(15:55):
coming forward to result intheir functional ability in the
classroom.
It's all impacted by all thesedifferent language cognitive
abilities.
And then that doesn't evenbring into the fact that they
also have certain personalitytraits, like you know,
likability or sociability andall those different.

(16:16):
There's that's a literature Idon't know enough about, but
there are, you know, really goodmetrics of these kinds of
traits that also impact thefunctional outcomes for these
children.

Lori (16:26):
This is great, thank you.
Thank you for explaining alland very easily, thank you.
So I think the thing that I amcurious about is, as a teacher,
I know that we want to enhancestudents language comprehension,
and it's actually reallyreassuring talking with you and

(16:46):
it kind of is reassuring thatthey're separate constructs
because that means we can workto strengthen each one, right?
Is that?
Yes, okay, absolutely so.
As a teacher, then, what couldwe do if we wanted to focus on
that language comprehension one,and maybe we'll take another
side street down the road andtalk about other ones.
But if we wanted to enhancestudents' language comprehension

(17:10):
, what could we do?

This is such a great question.
So first I'll say that what hasbeen done typically from the
classrooms and the educators Iwork with, is there is
definitely acknowledgement thatlanguage and reading are
important.
But what we see is it's morelike a relay race where it's
like OK, first in the earlygrades, focusing on word reading
.
So that's like the baton you'reholding and you're getting the

(17:32):
child to read words, and thenyou pass the baton on later,
let's say the later elementarygrades, and you start shifting.
And those teachers in the latergrades, like third, fourth and
fifth, they're focusing more onlanguage comprehension and
comprehension activities.
So what we found is that it'sbetter if we cannot treat it
like a relay race but treat itlike parallel races that are

(17:53):
going on, so that you're, youknow, activating both along the
continuum.
And so what that means is thatwe would have more time for
language comprehension in theearly grades and we would also
carve out time for reading words, advanced word reading, in the
later grades, so that you wouldhave these two streams.
So when you talk about whatteachers can do to stimulate

(18:15):
language comprehension, I thinkof this in two separate kind of
buckets.
The first thing to do is thinkthrough the system that's in
place and think about your ELAblock.
Think about you know what'syour focus of attention as a
teacher across the grades.
That's one way to think aboutit.
So it's the system levelapproach to making sure that
you're including readingcomprehension.

(18:36):
And the next way to think aboutit is what are you actually
doing like day to day in theclassroom to stimulate?
So when I talk about thisparallel race, I'm really
talking more about thestructures that we have in place
in our system, in the ELA blockand also in our multiple tiers
of support systems.
So in the MTSS or responseintervention, you know, you know

(18:57):
tiers.
What we often see is there'sone tier right, so you have like
really strong tier oneinstruction and then you do some
screening and then you seewho's struggling and you provide
some small group instructionand you continue to monitor with
progress monitoring and then ifa child's continuing to
struggle, you send them formaybe a special education
evaluation.
But what happens is within oursystem, that focus changes over

(19:21):
time, like I mentioned, like arelay race, like it's like.
In the beginning you're reallyfocused on word reading.
Later you start to focus oncomprehension.
What we found clearly inmultiple longitudinal studies
with children is that we do havetwo separate strands that need
to be stimulated across.
And so I've been thinking, eventhrough with my educational
partners, like perhaps we needtwo different sets of MTSS

(19:44):
processes, one for word readingand one for language across the
grades, because we want to makesure that one we're not missing
kids who are struggling withlanguage in the early grades and
that we're also not missingkids later who have word reading
problems.
So that's kind of a structuralway to really think through
language comprehension Now at adetailed way.

(20:05):
One thing we have to really bethinking through is are we
testing language comprehension,are we teaching language
comprehension?
And this was first noted byJean Chal in the 60s.
She said you know, we're notreally teaching language
comprehension, we're justtesting it.
And what she meant is that thecurricula back then and I'll
also argue it does it quite abit today is you say well, I'm

(20:26):
focusing on comprehension when Iask the child questions about
the text, but that's justtesting comprehension.
That is qualitatively differentthan teaching comprehension.
When we think about teachingcomprehension, we think about
the individual malleablecomponents that we can work on,
and there's been severalconsistent in the literature.

(20:47):
One is vocabulary.
That's a big one, you know.
It's like we kids learnvocabulary words.
There's a great literatureabout how to do it and some of
the key factors in teachingvocabulary is to make
child-friendly definitions, notlike in the old days when we
were told to look it up in thedictionary.
We know that doesn't work verywell.
So one thing is just focusingon that.

(21:08):
One of the reasons thedictionary definition doesn't
work is because, you know,oftentimes the dictionary
definition is even morecomplicated than the word itself
.

Melissa (21:16):
I mean, that's sometimes you have to like look
up the words in the definitionto look at more words.

I mean I use a basic one, like if you look up
wash, it's just like.
Or maybe it's scrub, it'swashed vigorously.
If you're struggling with theword scrub you're not going to
know vigorously, like I mean,that just doesn't make sense.
So child-friendly definitions,multiple exposures, teaching
words with all the differentrepresentations.
So if you're teaching a newword, write it, say it, you know

(21:45):
, spell it, all those differentthings.
So we know vocabulary iscritically important to language
comprehension and impactsreading comprehension as well.
And then the other part we knowis important is grammar.
So grammatical knowledge in youknow grammar, split up into two
components, or syntax, which islike word order and the
sentence structure.
And then there's morphology,which is those individual

(22:06):
components of words, and inEnglish, because our sentence,
we don't do a lot of the movingaround of words like they do in
Spanish, for instance, havingthe adjective before.
So we actually call our grammarmorphosyntax, we kind of put it
together.
But children having a good andmore comprehensive morphosyntax
is helpful.
And then we have some otherthree other skills that we

(22:28):
categorize as higher levellanguage skills.
They're not going to besurprising to you, they're ones
you've heard about Story grammar.
So understanding the structureof stories like that.
There's a character and settingand these are higher level.
We call these higher levellanguage because vocabulary and
morphosyntax that should developon its own with children
through exposure.
Higher level language somechildren do struggle with that.

(22:50):
We can talk about what thatlooks like.
But higher level languageskills are ones that are just
don't come automatically tochildren.
They really benefit frominstruction.
I mean, I remember being ingraduate school you know I'll
date myself.
You know I was like in the late20s in graduate school learning
about story grammar.
It never occurred to me, Ididn't think about it.
I was a good comprehender ofstories but I didn't really

(23:11):
think about story grammar andthat's a good example.
Like you don't have to thinkabout this, but if you do, it
does show to improve children'scomprehension.
There's also comprehensionmonitoring.
That's just being aware of thefact, like we do sometimes when
we're going to bed, like I do,and you want to read one last
chapter of a book and then yourealize I don't think I really
even remember that chapter atall.

(23:31):
It's just having the awarenessof that and a lot of children
don't?
They just push on.
Yeah, so having that awareness.

Lori (23:39):
That is so scary that I always we've talked about that
exact thing on a couple otherpodcasts and like that is the
thing that scares me the most iswhen, like kids read and they
have no, and then they don'tstop.
I'm like, oh, all right, yougot to know what you don't know.
They have to be taught.

I mean we really do think very carefully about
what to do and then they have tobe taught what to do when the
comprehension breaks down.
Like what strategy?
I mean, rereading is a veryobvious one, but there's others.
And then the last higher levelcomponent we think about is
inferencing, so just reallyhighlighting the gaps in stories
and helping children to havebetter inferencing skills.
Those are five of the malleablefactors that are involved in

(24:17):
most language comprehensioncurricula and have the most
scientific evidence.
But what we have to think aboutwith language comprehension is
we have to be systematic andexplicit in our instruction of
language comprehension and ithas to have a curriculum that
builds upon itself.
So when you think about all ourdiscussion about word reading
and teaching systematic,explicit phonics, we have to

(24:39):
have that same level.
I always say everything we dofor word reading and know is
good for word reading we have todo for language.
So testing it consistently,comprehension or, I'm sorry,
curriculum-based measures,screening, you know, systematic,
explicit instruction thatbuilds upon the skills.
That has to happen for languageas well, and that's not the

(25:01):
case typically now in theclassroom because again, it's
kind of that shift that occursover time and we need to have
that systematic approach andwe've done work in language
comprehension.
We have, you know, runrandomized control trials on
language comprehension and youcan make improvements for
children and I think that'simportant.
So one last thing I'll say is Iwant to tie language

(25:24):
comprehension to knowledge.
So we hear a lot about worldknowledge and how important
knowledge is, absolutely.
But we also have to think abouthow do we get knowledge into
children's brains, like, howdoes it happen?
It happens through language.
So when I say that I'm focusedon language comprehension, just
by saying that I'm also talkingabout knowledge, because it's
really hard to focus on languagewhen you have nothing to talk

(25:44):
about.
So we got to have the contentthere.
Content is so important.
So you know, when you know alot of discussion around word
reading and knowledge, that'spretty synonymous with what I'm
saying about word reading andlanguage comprehension.
I'm focused on how to get thatknowledge into the child's brain
.

Lori (26:03):
Can I Ask a question here about the?
I'd love to go back to one ofthose pieces that you mentioned.
You mentioned, like I love theidea.
Well, first, I love the idea oflike what we do for one side,
we have to do for the other.
It is, yeah, I love that andthank you for that very clear
visual.
But you mentioned testing and Ithink if I were a teacher

(26:24):
listening right now, I think I'dbe wondering what does this
look like Like?
I know the testing that happensat maybe the state level isn't
the most helpful to me in myclassroom, with immediate
results.
You know, oftentimes thosedon't come back for months and
months and the students are noteven my students by the time the
test results come back.
So what you mentioned frequentassessment, what does that look

(26:46):
like?
So you mentioned frequentassessment.
What does that look like?

That's a great question and I think that this
is really this is an area thatneeds more work.
So, as teachers are thinkingthrough this, there's a reason
why it's not in their hands yet,because it takes time to
develop those measures.
I will say that there is a free, open access measure called the
cubed that was funded by thefederal government for the last
decade.

(27:09):
It's a fantastic resource.
I always say you know what?
I've really avoided sayingthings are free because actually
nothing in this world is free.
I'm gonna I always now call itprepaid by your tax dollars,
because it was paid.
Nothing's free, so it is freeto you, but you did prepay it,
and so those measures are reallyhard to create because, you

(27:32):
know, with word reading, it is arestricted set, right.
So we have a restricted set ofsounds and letters that we're
teaching and even though you canuse that restricted set to
create all types of words andnon-words and it's, you know,
infinite, in that way, whenyou're teaching the decoding
aspect, you really can teach inmore discreet.
Now, language truly is infiniteand it changes.

(27:53):
So we add new words to thedictionary every year, right,
and even grammar changes, likeyou know, of course, when I was
growing up, it was like you knowtwo fish, now it's like two
fishes.
What's that's a thing now youknow like it evolves over time
and and so it really isintractable.
So it's, it's just, it's notfinite.
Because of that, when you'recreating measures of language,

(28:18):
you have to take into accountthis change.
But you also have to start toequate on things like knowledge,
for instance, and that's sohard.
So when, when you want to givecurriculum-based measures of
word reading right, you wouldhave your set of words that
you're teaching, the skillsyou're teaching, and you would
measure did the child learn this?
Did they learn silent E?

(28:38):
Did they learn blends, digraphs?
What you're teaching, you wouldactually determine did they
learn it, and that would fuelyour instruction.
When you're doing languagemeasures, you want to do similar
types of measures.
But let's take vocabulary, forinstance.
I've worked on curriculum-basedmeasures of vocabulary.
So let's say you do that.
First off, when you say, how doyou do this, you want to say

(28:59):
you know?
Hey, child, I taught you thisword and now I want to see if
you know what it is.
I taught you the word justice.
I used this child-friendlydefinition.
I did everything right.
And then you say, hey, I usethis child-friendly definition,
I did everything right.
And then you say, hey, what'sjustice?
And then they give you adefinition and let me tell you
that's hard to score because,kids, you might be like, well,
he's kind of right, I don't.
So then you have to give, like,either partial credit, really
hard, or you give maybe dynamic,like, maybe they say something

(29:22):
and you want to query more.
You're like, well, I'll giveyou two points if you say it
right the first time, but if Ihave to ask you more, I'll give
you one point.
It's tricky to give.
So there's a lot of greatscience around creating these
measures, but in the meantime,one of the best ones is the
cubed.
It was 10 years of developmentand they're short stories that
were equated on knowledge and amillion other things equated on

(29:43):
story grammar, equated on numberof words, equated on things
like how many times was the maincharacter mentioned in the
story.
And this is because, if you'regoing to give language
comprehension measures acrosstime three times a year, you
want to make sure that the firstone you gave wasn't the easiest
one, because then later, whenyou give the next one and you
know the child's improving andthen they do worse.

(30:04):
You're like why did they doworse?
Well, they did worse becausethe next measure was harder.
You're like why did they doworse?
Well, they did worse becausethe next measure was harder.
So trying to equate the measureis really really tricky.
So that's an area of researchthat's ongoing.
I do have a Google documentthat I created for this exact
question that leads educators,and maybe we can link it in

(30:27):
resources where you can go tothis free, open access document
that lists off all the screeningmeasures currently available
for language, because there'sscreening measures and then
there's progress monitoringmeasures and then there's
outcome measures, and it's areally tricky nut to crack in
that way.
So if you're looking for things, there are some things
available, but they're not asreadily available as others.
The other thing that we need todo very clearly is we need to

(30:49):
integrate it into the curriculumright.
So we need measures that arelike.
We need a curriculum that alsohas measures that go right along
with the curriculum.
That's the ideal situation.

Lori (30:58):
That's what we really need .
That's what I was thinking Like.
Let's use this thing that wealready have in front of us.
That'd be so much easier thantrying to go find something else
.
Also, the knowledge then wouldalso be aligned.

Totally.
But that's tricky in terms ofstructure because curriculum
developers aren't oftenassessment developers.
Assessment developers aren'toften curriculum developers.
So there has to be this matchand that's kind of outside of
our purview.
That's like a publishing issue.
People are working on it.
I feel very hopeful.
But my big issue now is like atleast changing the mindset that

(31:30):
we need this, because I used tonot talk about this as much
because I was waiting formeasures.
I would think to myself I don'twant to bring this up because
there's no resources to directanyone to.
But I kind of got over thatbecause I felt like you know
what?
We just need awareness first,and then the measures will come
and the curriculum will come.
And we do have some greatcurricula around knowledge and

(31:51):
language now.
So that thing, that nut, hasbeen cracked a bit and we're
continuing to do even better andbetter on that.
But I know the measures willcome as well.
I want to say one last thingabout this.
That makes it even trickier.
So here's the situation.
This that makes it eventrickier.

(32:12):
So here's the situation.
Reading, comprehension measuresin the early grades test word
reading, not comprehension.
This has been shown over andover and over and over.
And it's so tricky because Iwork with school partners and
they'll say to me we do testcomprehension in first grade, we
totally test it.
Here's the measure.
And I'm like, oh no, becausewhat we've shown in our
longitudinal studies is thatwhen we look at what accounts

(32:33):
for the variation in wordreading, we do see the simple
view playing out, of course, thetwo components.
But what we find is in theearly grades the majority of the
impact of comprehension is onword reading and if you and then
later it changes, it's lessword reading and more
comprehension If you kind oflook at the ground truth of what
you're giving the tests of.
Okay, so first off, to give areading comprehension test to a

(32:55):
first or second grader, you haveto have words they can read.
And words they can read are notrepresenting complexity in
language.
So you ask them to read apassage and if you they can read
the words, the language itselfis so easy that they can guess
it, even if their language isn'tgreat.
Now, in the later grades, weactually see a shift.

(33:16):
It's kind of interesting, yousee that even children who might
not be able to read words thatwell, as long as they have a
certain threshold of wordreading and they can start to
access the text.
Then, even though the languageis complex, they can use their
language skill to understand itand fill in the gap.
Because of this, when we thinkabout word reading and when we
think about the simple view ofreading and the reading rope,

(33:39):
when we give comprehensionmeasures, they have to be
language comprehension measures,not reading comprehension,
because language comprehensionis going to get at the
complexity for the child's age,not their reading level, and I
think this is a tricky conceptpersonally to explain and to
think about.
But I really want to hit ithome because there's even been

(34:00):
studies showing that in theearly grades if you ask children
comprehension questions beforeyou read the passage, they'll
like they're like, have a 75%chance of getting them right.

Melissa (34:09):
Just because they're so easy.

You're just so easy.
It's just it's so easy.
They don't even have to readthe words.
I mean, like that's how easy itis.

Lori (34:15):
So I think this is Also, it's probably, I would add
predictable maybe Totally Right,Like if they know a story arc,
they can probably predict it andjust make a good guess.

Absolutely.
We find this consistently toowith our children who struggle
with language comprehension.
They can actually do reallywell in the early grades as long
as they can read words.

Melissa (34:37):
I know we've gotten that email before Lori kind of
the flip on that a little bit.
Tiffany of a youngerkindergarten first grade teacher
who's like I'm supposed to givethis comprehension assessment
but I mean I know my kids can'tread those words so they
shouldn't be able to yet they'renot even supposed to, so why
would I give them thisassessment?
Like that would just frustratethem and I know they're not
going to do well, why would I dothat?

Totally, that's exactly it, because to get the
language level where it needs tobe, they can't read the words,
so really, the best way is justto decouple them and work on
them separate and then you, youknow, also work on, of course,
books are the key that pull itall together.
So, working on language throughbooks and oh, I also want to
talk about books for a moment,if you indulge me a bit, because

(35:21):
it really relates.
It really relates to this.
It's exactly what you said,melissa, about the books and
reading it.
The other thing that we've seenis that when you have books that
you're using to teach phonicsskills, like decodables or
practice books, those differentthings that should not be your
comprehension books either.
So when we do comprehension, weactually divorce the kind of

(35:43):
simple view we say like reading.
When you're doing comprehensionand you're using books, you
actually use books that are, youknow, one to two grade levels
above their word reading anddon't require them to read
because they need the languagethat's in those books, but they
don't need to be tied to havingto read them.
So you either have, you know, aset of coding, yeah, exactly,
so you either have two separatebooks, sets of books that you

(36:05):
need to tackle.
Or you know, there's magicalcases where there's some
decodable books that tackle goodcontent and that's great too.
But you need to not be tied tothe books, because I will tell
you in talking to teachers it'ssuch a great question They'll be
like, well, how do I do this?
Because the books, you know,don't tackle this language
complexity and I'll say well,those books are for word reading

(36:26):
instruction and there's booksfor language instruction.

Melissa (36:33):
Or you have some people who say, well, just wait until
the later grades to tackle thosetougher texts, but no, no, no
and actually no, you don't.

And actually go back to the race.
Yes, go back to the race.
We need parallel lines.
It's intriguing too if youthink about preschool.
So preschool is such a languagerich environment, no-transcript

(37:20):
.
See that in your ELA block youmight spend, you know, in the
early grades, more percentage oftime on word reading, but you
wouldn't want to, and maybelater on, more percentage of
time on comprehension, but youwouldn't want to exclude them.
And that's what really happens,because you know it's, you get
busy and also, honestly, ifthere's no curriculum to support
it, it's not going to happen ina systematic, explicit way.

(37:41):
You have to have the curriculain place.
You can't just say, oh yeah,have fun with language.
I mean, I'm a speech languagepathologist and I can't think of
language activities on the fly,especially for a whole entire
classroom, like that's magical.
You need some materials to helpwith that.
Glad you said that.

Melissa (37:58):
Yes, exactly, I'm curious really quick, but I mean
, we have so many more questionsfor you and we're already so
far in.
I just you've used readingcomprehension and language
comprehension and I just wantedto make sure, like I think you
may have touched on it earlier,but I just want to stamp it Like
is there a difference betweenthe two?
Are we saying the same thinghere?

You guys just know exactly the right questions
to ask.
Of course you do.
This is very important.
So they are essentially picturethe same assessment, but in one
case the child listens to astory and the next case the
child reads it.
That's the difference.
So you have a short passage,you know you, either if it's
language comprehension orlistening comprehension, you
would read it out loud to them.

(38:37):
They do not see any print, youjust read it to them and they
answer questions.
If it's reading comprehension,you could even use the same
passage, depending on what yourfocus is.
You could give them the passage.
They read it to themselves.
There's different rules, likedo you take it away after they
read it?
Do you leave it there?
That's just a nuance.
But then they answer questions.
So one involves word readingand one doesn't.

Melissa (38:58):
So it is putting the pieces together for reading
comprehension.

Exactly, and it's kind of fascinating looking at
longitudinal studies, which Ialways feel like you, as
teachers, can totally relate tothat.
Because what do teachers do?
We just watch children grow up,you know, and that's what I do
in my studies too.
I just watch them grow up anddocument their skills in the
later grades, starting around10th grade and all the way
through adulthood.
If you have good reading andlanguage comprehension, you're
using the exact same brainprocesses that's been shown and

(39:23):
they overlap dramatically, likebasically they're the same thing
.
So once you're later and you'vemelded those two skills, you
have automatic word recognition.
It won't matter if I say it outloud to you or if I let you
read it, it's going to be theexact same score.
But that doesn't happen untillater, and that also happens if
you're neurotypical.
That will happen Now.
If you're neurodivergent andyou have a difficulty in one

(39:47):
area or the other, then youmight have a preference.

Lori (39:50):
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask with the listening
comprehension.
So you're saying it kind ofpeters out at around 10th grade
because all of the well, thegraphic that, not all of the one
graphic that I have, that'sstuck in my mind.
I think I've seen through likemiddle school, right, it kind of
like Peter.
I think I've seen through likemiddle school, right, it kind of
like Peter.
It kind of evens out in middleschool.
Can you like elaborate on whatabout that?

(40:13):
Older age kind of brings it upto speed.

Absolutely so in the older age.
I'm going to tackle this twoways.
First I'll tell you about whythat's the case, that they merge
, and then I'm going to make acase for language comprehension
outside of the service ofreading comprehension.
Because, in the simple view,language comprehension is only
in the service of readingcomprehension.
It's like why would you everneed to have language

(40:40):
comprehension without readingcomprehension?
Right, it's only there to helpyou read.
Now, I would argue that could besaid for the case of word
reading, and we say that all thetime, like you want to read
words so that you can understandtext.
Language comprehension is, Iwould argue, dual purpose.
So it is, of course, in theservice of reading comprehension
, but it also serves you everyday, because even right now,

(41:02):
your listeners are usinglanguage comprehension.
Unless they're reading atranscript, they're using
language comprehension abilitiesand every day when we interact
socially, we use languagecomprehension.
So it's a little different thanword reading.
That way, we really want tothink about the fact that it's,
of course, in the service ofreading comprehension, it
becomes one, but it's also souseful in everyday language.
So what I'm even thinking oflike television, television

(41:25):
podcasts, of course is a big one.
Now, of course.

Lori (41:28):
It makes sense, though, that that's why neurotypical or
neurodivergent would havedifferent experiences, right
Totally.

Yes, so how does that converge?
So the way that converges isonce your word reading skills
are intact enough to beautomatic, then that's when you
start to see the convergencehappen, because it won't matter,
because as we listen, that'struly automatic, because speech
is dynamic, it's transient, Isay it, it's gone, the only way

(41:56):
my speech lives is in yourmemory, whereas visual, when
you're looking at a word, thatis completely automatic.
You know static, right, it'sright there, it doesn't change
and you can see it over and over.
So it's capturing speech.
Right, you can hold it tightwhere speech is just in and out.
But when you're good at readingwords, it doesn't matter Like,

(42:19):
you read the words and youunderstand it, or you, you know,
hear it and you understand it.
It's really the word readingthat plays into the way that
those two converge.
And actually what we find isthat children who struggle to
read words, children who havedyslexia or subclinical or any
kind of struggle with wordreading, oftentimes they may

(42:39):
rely more on their listeningcomprehension, because reading
words is a struggle, like ifthey're given a passage and
they're trying to read it, it'slike they don't have any
cognitive energy left, like, no,there's nothing left for them
to comprehend, right, and I knowyou've talked about that, I
think, on the podcast a bit.
So you know it's like you havethat and then they might prefer
for you to tell them Right,they're just like don't, I don't

(42:59):
want to read it, I just wantyou to tell me.
Now the flip side also happens.
You have children who havedifficulty with language
comprehension for whateverreason, whether they have
developmental language disorderor they have difficulty
processing, processinglimitations, all kinds of
factors.
They may prefer to read it Likethey may.
You may say, you know they maybe listening and be like I'd

(43:20):
rather see it.
I want time to process and seeit For them.
That's something they want.
So I do think that you know, forneurotypicals it's usually
interchangeable, but even so, Ithink people do have a
preference.
So I do this, I do this example.
That's listening comprehension.
When I give talks and I've justlearned to put it up on the
screen because it drives myaudience nuts, I tell them like

(43:45):
okay, just you can close youreyes, but if you really want to
see it, just remember this islistening comprehension.
You're not really reading itbecause it literally I get so
much feedback.
I'd really like to see thatexample.
I want to be able to read thatexample, even though it's a
listening comprehension example,because we do tend to prefer
mostly to see it unless we havestruggles with comfort.

Melissa (44:07):
Like I mean, we have a podcast, but we were asked so
many times for can we havetranscripts?
You know it's funny because youthink, like it's a podcast,
right, that's what it's for isto listen.
But so many people still wantto see, like they want to have
that time to just read it and Ido that too.
Like you know, sold a story.
I was like I want to read that.
I don't want I.
I heard it already, but now Iwant to read it.

Yes, and there's probably there's also some
research behind that a bit too,because when you read it you're
giving multiple sensorymodalities involved, so you're
getting a richer representation.
We actually did a cool studyyou guys will like this on
vocabulary learning, where wetaught children words and we
taught them either by justsaying the word.
We didn't write the word at all, we just said it.

(44:50):
Let's say it's elevator, I meanthat's not a great one,
probably because most kids know,but let's say they don't
Elevator, elevator, elevator.
Here's an elevator.
You go on it, give them all thedefinition, whatever, you can
even show them a picture of it,but you don't write it out ever.
Just no writing.
Then we had a condition wherewe actually wrote the same kids,
different words, and it waslike counterbalance.
We do all the researchmanipulations you do, and so

(45:11):
then we'd have yeah, we'd havelike we'd say elevator, all the
same thing, and we wrote it out.
And what was fascinating andthis is a, this is a phenomenon.
Now that's been, that's beendone, you know, studied over and
over, and there's convergingevidence called orthographic
facilitation.
Children learn the spoken wordbetter when they've seen the
written first.

(45:31):
So not even.
It's just not even like writingit.
It's just not even like themright now.
Nope, just seeing it, justseeing it.
And so we've studied why thatmight be the case.
There's some theoreticalevidence or some other evidence
it's you know, really, what wethink is happening theoretically
, and also, you know, looking atsome of the early brain work,
is that you're activatingmultiple parts of the brain, for

(45:53):
one thing, and also you have abetter sense of the letter, the
sounds, because you have letter,sound correspondence, and so
you can visualize it.
And I think about this as thename tag phenomenon.
Have you ever been at aconference or met someone and
they say their name and you hearit, but don't you really just
want to look at their name tagto make sure you heard the right

(46:14):
thing?

Lori (46:15):
I do, and it almost feels like I'm trying to sneak a peek,
you know.

Oh my God, totally Cause you're like I want
to attend to your name, but Ireally want to see it.
And that and that name tageffect is what children are
experiencing when they'relearning a new word.
They want to see it too.
So it's multiple modalitiesPlus, it verifies is this the
right sound combination?
Am I saying it right?
Am I hearing it right?
So that's important too.
So multiple modalities isreally important for teaching

(46:41):
vocabulary, but also it tiesinto this reading comprehension
phenomenon versus language orlistening comprehension.

Lori (46:47):
Where were you when I was like a second year teacher and I
did that very poor practice ofwhen you know the words and
you'd have kids rainbow wordright.
I'm like, oh, I'm embarrassedabout you know some of the
things.
But I mean, yeah, not helpful,of course.

I mean well, I act like this is just such a
phenomenon.
But I mean, this was just firststudy.
It has not very long.
I mean, we just published apaper on this in 2018.
It's pretty new, this approach.
And also we published our paperon children with dyslexia
because there was also this viewof like you don't want to
include the written word forchildren with dyslexia because
they struggle to read.
But actually what we showed isthat including the written word

(47:26):
for them was also helpful.
Even though they struggled toread, they still benefited from
having the writtenrepresentation of the word.
So this is pretty new work,lori.
So I didn't know about it.

Lori (47:36):
I was skeptical, you know, you know our listeners are
going to ask for the links toall of these.
Is it something that you canshare with us?
I will, I'll give it all.
I would love that.
I would love that I was takingnotes.

(47:57):
Oh my gosh, I mean it does makesense because I was thinking
like going back to your elevatorexample.
I was thinking if I don't havea strong sense of or I'm you
know, I'm a child with dyslexia,I don't have a strong sense of
elevator doesn't start with an L, it starts with an E.
I'm going, ah, right, I'mmaking the ah.
So I'm thinking if I were a kidand I was visualizing that as
somebody was saying it, I wouldbe visualizing it wrong and then
I'd have to go back and undothat incorrect rather than just
seeing it correct for the firsttime.

Such a good point .
I mean that makes total sense.
You want to have the correctlearning right up front.
That makes a lot of sense.
I can really geek out on likeletter sound stuff.
I'm sure you guys can too,because as a language person
there's such cool studies LikeI'm going to tell you about one
really cool study that was donein 1998 by Uta Frith and her
colleagues.
So what she did is she looked atchildren as they became

(48:39):
literate.
So they were.
And then she looked at thisspecial village.
I think it was in Portugal, soI'll have to look back.
I can link this article as well,but she you know, the problem
with looking at literacy andilliteracy is a lot of times in
the US it's tied up withsocioeconomic status and some
hardships that people have beenthrough right and other factors.
So in this village it was, Ithink the firstborn child was

(49:03):
never allowed to learn to read,but the other children were, and
so what they did is they lookedto see what the differences
were in speech processing oncechildren learned to read versus
not.
So they would take the childthat didn't learn to read and
then they would take thechildren that did and they would
do these sound processing tasksand what they found is that
children, when they learn toread, they start to specify

(49:25):
their sounds more specificallythan a person who doesn't learn
to read.
So you actually I love herquote from that.
She says that orthography islike a virus that enters your
brain and it changes all of yourprocessing.
All of your speech processingis changed, because once you
intimately tie those together weknow that now happens in the
visual word form area it changesthe way you represent speech.

(49:47):
So in this orthographicfacilitation you're kind of
taking advantage of that.
You're like showing them theletters and sounds and it's more
specific, it's specifying theirsound representation, which I
think is super cool and fun asthinking about sounds and how
letters and sounds and how itchanges you.
And then another study I willsay is like looking at, for
instance, the word surprise.

(50:08):
So the word surprise, youactually don't say the first R
in it.
You know when you're speakingyou say surprise, surprise.
But when you're speaking slowlyand you're a literate person,
you say surprise, surprisebecause you're like, you know
how it's written right, and wesee this consistently.
As children become literate,they start to change the way

(50:30):
they say some words, evenpossibly to the incorrect way.
Well, nothing's reallyincorrect, but you know, it's
just they're tying from adifferent representation like a
dialect, it's just.
Yeah, I mean, it's just that we, you know, speech is fast and
quick and we often reduce ourvowels and stuff.
So it's kind of fascinating tosee how, you know, we're,
reading words changes yourlanguage too.
You know, melissa.
You know reading words changesyour language too.

Lori (50:50):
You know, melissa, you know what I'm thinking about.
The podcast with NathanielSwain.
Remember we laughed so hardwhen we all said Hermione, yeah,
hermione.

Yeah.

Lori (51:01):
So yes, and when I recently, recently, as a family,
went to Universal and I wastelling you know, my husband and
I was telling my daughter that,and they were like what are you
talking about?
Cause they'd only watched themovies and I was the only one
who had read the books, which isvery embarrassing.
I feel like they needed to readthe books before we went.
But no shame, no shame they.

(51:21):
They were like why would you,why would you ever say, hermione
, I'm like, cause I was doing itin my head and just attending
to what I thought it was, andthen it was like you had never
heard that, never heard thisword, totally.

Oh, my gosh Happens all the time Right Like
in the.
I love when you watch a moviefrom a book and you're like, oh,
that's how they say it yeah,totally.
This happens all the time inresearch too.
Like I read research articlesby authors but I've never heard
their name pronounced.
So then people will be likehave you read that article by
blah blah blah?

(51:54):
And I'm like maybe Can I see itwritten.

Lori (52:01):
Such a good point, yeah, or you sound silly because
you're like I don't think so andyou really have, yeah.

Oh my gosh, that's totally embarrassing and
they're like really you haven't.
You cited them lots of times.
I don't know Like.
I promise I've read thosearticles, but so true, so true.

Lori (52:18):
Oh, I wish that we were like having dinner and drinking
wine right now with you, butlike this we, I would just keep
you at the table for a good likefive hours.
Oh well, you know if you'reamazing this is so much fun.

Well, lori and Melissa, you would be also.
The tables would turn because,remember, I would start asking
you guys lots.
I have so many I didn't haveyou on my podcast, so many
questions I want to ask you too.
So it would definitely be aback and forth.

Lori (52:44):
Anytime, anytime.
We're here for you Fantastic.

Melissa (52:50):
Well, before we let you go, can we ask you about one
more thing?
I know this could be a wholepodcast on its own, I know that.
But you mentioned developmentallanguage disorder and I know
you know, like you said, we'vetalked about dyslexia on our
podcast before and I just wantto make sure we get, if
someone's like wait, what wasthat?
She just flew by thatdevelopmental language disorder.
Can you talk just a little?

bit about it.
Yes, thank you so much for theopportunity to discuss it.
So it's you know.
I think it's a perfect time toask this question because now
we've talked, we've laid thefoundation, because I think you
have to almost lay all of thatfoundation to even get to what
it is.
So what we know is if we thinkfirst, I'm going to talk about
dyslexia, because it's somethingwe know much more about.
We've had so many discussionsabout it.

(53:31):
We have decoding dyslexiamovements, screening for
dyslexia laws.
There's so much focus ondyslexia, which is great,
fantastic.
So dyslexia, as we know, is thebrain-based difference that
occurs when you have difficultylearning how to read words, and
we know that's a brain-baseddifficulty.
It's a neurodivergence.
A child is born with dyslexia.

(53:51):
They have difficulty withconnecting letters and sounds
and they may have otherdifficulties or maybe no other
difficulties, like youdefinitely know about kids who
there was no other difficultyand then they went to school and
all of a sudden they havedyslexia, because that's when
they're confronted with pairingletters and sounds.
So that's dyslexia, which weknow is the lower end of the
distribution of word reading.
So there's a range of wordreading abilities and at the

(54:14):
lowest end, that's where we seechildren with dyslexia.
Now, with that background inmind, let's think about
listening comprehension thatwe've been talking about.
So listening comprehension isalso a set of skills that's
separate of word reading.
That involves using andunderstanding language, involved
with vocabulary and syntax andall these other areas that we

(54:35):
discussed.
So what we also know is thatthere's individual differences
in language comprehension, andat the low end of that ability
level is children who havedevelopmental language disorder,
and when I give talks, I'vebeen really fascinated by this
because I have a unique view assomeone who studies both, which
is actually pretty rare justbecause of the silos of the way

(54:56):
we work as academics and aseducators, so having a unique
view of studying both, what wefind is that, when I do the
facts about dyslexia, they'revery similar to the facts about
developmental language disorder,with one key difference, and
that is the area of struggle.
So we know that children withdevelopmental language disorder
they're born with a braindifference that makes it

(55:19):
difficult for them to understandand use language that they hear
in their ambient environment,so it's very difficult for them.
It takes them longer to learnvocabulary words.
It takes them longer to learnsyntax.
What's really tricky aboutthese kids, though, is that they
, from lots of longitudinalstudies we show that they follow
the same trajectory of languagelearning as their neurotypical

(55:40):
peers, but they typically arebehind.
You know, depending on theseverity, one to four years
behind.
It's really hard to determine ina classroom of five and
six-year-olds who's talking likea four-year-old.
I mean, that's very difficult.
So, unlike dyslexia which youcan, I would argue, see when
you're asking a child to decode,you can really see the struggle

(56:00):
and you can see wow, this isnot right.
Children with DLD are much morehidden because they choose the
language they use in theclassroom.
So if they're talking like afour-year-old first off, talking
like a four versus six-year-oldis very hard to distinguish.
I mean, that's a nuance thatrequires testing.
I struggle with that.
I know the hallmarks of DLD, somaybe I'm tuning into a few

(56:22):
things, but I always like tohave an assessment to show me
what's going on, and so theyalso choose the words they use.
So, you know, six-year-oldsthat might sound like
four-year-olds, because they'rejust not talking as much, or
they just they just don't want.
You know, there's many reasons,and so what we have to do is we
have to test for it, becauseit's the individual difference
at the lower end for languagecomprehension is really really

(56:44):
missed.
It's also not well known, eventhough the prevalence is the
same as dyslexia.
So the prevalence of justexactly the same, yes, so
dyslexia.
You know the range.
There's a range of prevalence,but you know a median kind of
range is 10%.
Dld is the same.
It usually range.
It's well.
We have a few more specifickind of epidemiologic studies to

(57:07):
look at prevalence and it'sshown between 7% and 13%.
So I go with 10% as the middle,which is a lot of people do.
So it's 10% of the populationthat has DLD or 10% with
dyslexia.
But let me tell you no oneknows about DLD.
Why is that?
Well, first off, dld has beenreally the purview of a speech
language pathologist, so it'sbeen.

(57:35):
These are our babies, our kids,and as a speech language
pathologist, these are the kidsthat I assessed, I looked for, I
treated.
The other thing is that it'sbeen called by so many different
labels across the world andacross research versus, you know
, practice.
So in research we used to callthese children specific language
impairment.
Then in schools they areidentified, as in the early
grades, as having developmentaldelay.
In the early childhood theyhave a speech and language
impairment and then later onthey might be, you know, qualify

(57:56):
as having a specific learningdisability and comprehension.
So, right there, in even onesystem, they're changing their
labels and then in different youknow ICD-9 codes, it's like
expressive receptive disorder.
These are all the same kids.
These are the same kids, justdifferent labels for the same
kids.
So, in 2017, there was aconsensus across the world,
literally across the world, tocome up with one label so that

(58:19):
we can actually start advocatingfor these kids that exist.
And like, how do we do it?
So the label was decided to bedevelopmental language disorder.
I will tell you, and youprobably won't be surprised,
that we are the very lastcountry, really developing
country, that's not using thisconsistently, because our setup
is really complicated.
So, for instance, australia,you know, as an example, they,

(58:40):
you know, adopted it.
They have the socializedmedicine.
They're like, okay, everyone,now we shall call these children
DLD in every way.
And then they do it and theystart working on the advocacy
for these children and how toassess them and how to.
Well, think about the UnitedStates, okay, what do we do?
Oh my God, 50 states.
You have the medical, a billiondistricts.
Oh my God, that's even, that'sjust education, oh my God.

Lori (59:02):
Local control, and then all the medical you haven't even
started.

Medical research, local control.
I mean it's insane.
So it's been a really heavylift and I'm excited to have
been a part of that.
We do see some major progress.
I'm going to give you anexclusive right now on this
podcast that I've been workingwith the Department of Education
.
They have just now released aletter saying that developmental
language disorder is notprecluded by IDEA.
You can use it just likedyslexia, and I almost feel

(59:31):
teary telling you this becauseit has been such a long journey
and I'm representing hundreds,thousands of people, hundreds
and thousands of people thathave been working on this.
So what I'm excited to see isthat, with the same prevalence
and with the shift on knowledgeand language, that we can start
recognizing these childrenbecause their outcomes are not
good.
Only 20% of them are ever, evereven identified for support.

(59:55):
And the children who areidentified this is the most
shocking part the children whoare identified with DLD are
those who one have an executivefunctioning difficulty that
disrupts the classroom, thatsends them for an evaluation
that might get them languagetesting.
The second one is they have amother or a father with high

(01:00:16):
socioeconomic status who canfight for them.
That's totally unacceptable,like that's a social justice
issue, because the differencesare really really, really clear.
The kids who get support havelong-term outcomes, life
outcomes that are dramaticallybetter than those who don't, who
are more likely to go into thejuvenile justice system.

(01:00:37):
They're more likely to loseemployment.
They I mean they're more likelyto commit suicide.
This is a very, very bigproblem because we associate
language with intelligence, sothese children are often thought
of as lazy, as unintelligent,as parents are blamed.
So it becomes a really bigfamily.
You know struggle too.

(01:00:58):
So I'm really working hard tohave the same recognition for
developmental language disorderswe have for dyslexia, and I
think a huge part of that isSLPs working with educators and
really trying to let this isthese are not our kids, these
are everyone's kids, they're inclassrooms, and that it has to
be part of the overall MTSSsupport system.

(01:01:18):
But that's a heavy lift, but Ithink we're getting there and a
big part of it is focusing onlanguage comprehension.
I also want to say that 50percent of children with
dyslexia have DLD and 50% ofchildren with DLD have dyslexia,
and actually that's a you knowthat's that differs across
situations.
It can be very much higher thanthat.
It's always higher, never lower.
So this is also one of thosethings where, when I talk to

(01:01:41):
people who work with dyslexia,they're like I don't see kids
with DLD.
I'm like I know you do, I knowyou do, I know you do, and vice
versa.
If you're working with childrenwith developmental language
disorder, you have children withdyslexia.
They're sitting right in frontof you.
So we have to work together tosupport these children for both
sides of the simple view ofreading.
So I'm really thankful that youasked about that question.

(01:02:01):
It's a really important thingthat working with these families
is such a gift.

Lori (01:02:06):
I'm so glad that you shared that.
Thank you for your work, yeahthe work you did.

Melissa (01:02:10):
sharing that, thank you so much.

Lori (01:02:20):
And that's a huge, huge recognition.
To risk like for the community.
That's a major and that's, Imean, a great first step.
So thank you for your work.

Tiffany Hogan (01:02:24):
I wasn't really familiar with it oh, so no one
was.

Melissa (01:02:27):
I saw.
I mean I saw those things instudents.
You know what I mean.
But I never would put ittogether and say like same as
what you're saying with teachers.
I would never have recommendedthat they're tested for anything
like that.
I just saw it and we did thebest we could.

Yeah, of course, I mean absolutely Like.
This is definitely one of thosesituations where it's no one's
fault, but we just now are in aplace where we can recognize
this and start to move forwardand I just think the future is
bright and I can definitely linkthe letter to your resources,
even, since I think that'ssomething, yeah, to get out to

(01:03:03):
the community and just startusing the label and start
thinking about it.
And there's been so muchamazing work internationally to
have a community.
If you I, when I work withparents, it was always so sad
for me when I would talk aboutyou have dyslexia, cause I again
, I had that unique positionwhere I could assess all these
different areas.
If I say you have dyslexia,they're like, okay, I know, okay
, I.
They were like, okay, great,I'm going to hook up with

(01:03:24):
international dyslexiaAssociation.
I'm going to read these books.
I'm going to have a communityand I'm going to.
I have these models and it'slike bam, I have same with ADHD,
adhd.
Great, I'm going to get theattitude magazine.
I'm going to get in thecommunity, I'm going to listen
to the podcast.
And these same kids if I saidDLD, it was like crickets.
There was no nationalorganization to support them.
There was no, you know,community support, but now

(01:03:47):
there's a strong community.
People are identifying, kidsare getting support, parents are
feeling supported and and it's,like I said, such an honor to
work with them because they, youknow they are getting that
support they need.

Lori (01:03:59):
I'm so glad that it's finally happening and sorry that
it took so long.
Right to all the familieslistening out there.

Absolutely, and thank you for the opportunity to
talk about it.
It's it's really familieslistening out there.
Absolutely, and thank you forthe opportunity to talk about it
.
It's really, you know, it'sreally educators like you, who
are open to thinking throughneurodivergence and more
holistic issues, that are reallybringing this to the forefront.

Lori (01:04:21):
Oh well, thank you.
Yeah, I do feel like it does.
Just, you know, it helps youunderstand people better too,
right, like you know, not evenas a teacher, but just as a
person, like when you'reinteracting with other people
and you know, sometimes you canfeel a little frustrated and it
just helps, I think, at least meI'll speak for myself helps me
be a little more patient and,like you know, I'm like I always

(01:04:41):
wonder, like what's going onfor them.
I, you know this might be hardfor them.
I need to like take a breathand it it does help you kind of
be a better person to understandother people better.
And this is how I kind of thinkof that, along with the teacher
side of what can I do toactually, you know, get some
real, real, real help for forthese students.
So well, is there anything elsebefore we go that you would

(01:05:05):
like to share?
I mean anything about anythingthat we talked about today?
The floor is yours.

Oh, wow, oh.
Let's see, there's a hundredthings going through my mind,
but they're not related to thistopic.
So there's just so many amazingthings going on.
I guess the last thing I'll sayis, like I said, the future's
bright.
There's so many wonderfulthings happening, and I think
we're going to really start tolearn more about something
called implementation science,which is something I'm so

(01:05:30):
passionate about, which isreally about exactly what you
guys are passionate about, whichis how do we get the evidence
into practice and how do we alsothe flip side of that, how do
we do a better job in ourresearch representing what's
actually happening in practice?
So it goes both ways.
I think that's something I'mreally excited about, and it all
relates to what we've discussedso far, and you guys are a big

(01:05:56):
part of that, becausedissemination in a friendly way
is a big part of implementationscience.

Lori (01:05:59):
So thank you for that, yeah, thank you, and thank you
for your good work with yourpodcast too.
See, hear, speak.
We're big fans of yours.

Thank you, thanks so much for having me.

Lori (01:06:09):
Thanks for listening.
Literacy lovers, To stayconnected with us, sign up for
our email list atliteracypodcastcom.

Melissa (01:06:18):
And to keep learning together.
Join the Melissa and Lori LoveLiteracy Podcast Facebook group
and be sure to follow us onInstagram and Twitter.

Lori (01:06:28):
If this episode resonated with you, take a moment to share
with a teacher friend or leaveus a five-star rating and review
on Apple Podcasts.

Melissa (01:06:37):
Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions
expressed by the hosts andguests of the Melissa and Lori
Love Literacy Podcast are notnecessarily the opinions of
Great Minds PBC or its employees.

Lori (01:06:50):
We appreciate you so much and we're so glad you're here to
learn with us.

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