When They are Pictures!
                                                                 Helping Your Visual Child
                                                                               Become Verbal! Part 4
                                                                                                   

 This will be our last column on language acquisition, as it specifically relates to our visual children.  This series concludes here with the story of Russel, my eight-year-old friend who you met in last month’s column.  I have known Russel since he was three, and his story nicely illustrates the principles we have been exploring.

Russel is a gifted visual learner, which is no surprise, since he carries an ASD diagnosis.  But Russel is also a good auditory learner.  He has always loved rhythm and cadence, having grown up in a house filled with mandolin and folk music.  Russel has always been a purist, though, and never wanted anyone to sing words to songs.  But over the years, Russel developed his own types of wordless song, a Stomp-style “Scat,” using his throat, tongue, and nostrils, alternately inhaling and exhaling.  By the time he was seven years old, he could deliver his version for 15 minutes at a time, while counting from 1 to 150!  This original song with words was especially exciting, because the inclusion of words told us that Russel was tolerating (very predictable) language in his music!

Yes, I guess the numbers 1-150 do qualify as “language,” but it was another year before Russel was using real sentences in his music.  But he is there now, and quite the creative musician!

But what about language to communicate?  When we first met, Russel was almost three, and was well into what we are calling the “Chapter 3” of language acquisition [see sidebar], where the sound track of his daily life was quiet speech, delivered in a cadence and gentleness that matched his auditory temperament.  Russel not only “tolerated” sound at this level, but really liked it.  The sound track of his life consisted of the predictable rhythm of “poetry,” into which almost any words could be placed.  None of this implies that Russel was communicating with words, but he was clearly on the right track.

The Story of a Child’s Language Acquisition: 

Chapter 1 – Things that delight
Chapter 2 – Delightful referents shared with others
Chapter 3 – Sound tracks of these delightful referents
Chapter 4 – Language of these delightful referents

We hadn’t coined the term “Language Acquisition Journal” at the time Russel was three, but if we had, these would have been some of the entries:

Except for the sticky-sweet desserts, the letters of the alphabet were Russel’s favorite things during his fourth year of life.  That other people also liked them ignited Russel’s sense of fun, and his visual pastime became his passion.  He loved putting the letters into alphabetic order, and, delighted in seeing key words in his visual environment.  The lighted “Exit” signs were his favorites, especially if they pointed the way to “magic doors”! 

Russel was quite OK with us saying the names of the letters, slowly and gently, as he put them in order.  We were careful to say each name softly, with gently-rising inflection, just after the letter was set in place, so the visual experience was not altered.  IT was tempting to go faster, or “teach” him in out way, but, we knew from many years of experience with scores of visual children that it would not be his way if we did.  We were determined to honor Russel’s real experience, and introduce the letter names in such a way that the sound track of Chapter 3 would gradually become a language experience of Chapter 4.

Once he trusted that people would not break the “rhythm,” Russel began to love this.  He didn’t like the ABC song, however, but we knew that would be the case.  And, he didn’t like rapid, or non-melodic, speech.  Russel’s pleasure was maintained only if the timing was predictable.  If any letters were missing, for instance, he didn’t want to hear discussion of it.  His “key phrases” were all he wanted to hear…

Inevitably, just as it had begun, Chapter 3 finally came to a close after six months.  It was many months later when other word orders, like spelling words he liked, became fun.  “Boston,” “turkey,” and “emergency” entered Russel’s realm of the visually-intriguing.  The alphabet still ruled, but real words played a strong second fiddle.

Russel was nearing four years old, and I had a feeling that sentences were in our immediate future.  I also had a feeling about which grammatical constructions we would introduce first.  They would refer to the now, to existence…and I predicted that sentences like, “It’s an A,” and “I got a B” and “We found a C” might be nice, grammatically-simple language to use when Russel had had his fill of words in isolation, and the entire alphabet, to boot.  The alphabet was a sacred entity, it seemed, with Russel dutifully isolating all its parts (letters), and then building up many combinations (partial alphabets/words), before he was really interested in talking about individual letters.
 

Before we go on a little side-journey is in order here…It is a return visit to a 2005 series of Digest columns, called Natural Language Acquisition on the Spectrum, which outlines the steps of grammatical development Russel was taking.  (Download a copy from the author’s website: www.communicationdevelopmentcenter.com)  It will help you understand why I wanted to present words to Russel in “wholes” like the alphabet, and why I wanted to present language to him in whole phrases like, “We found a C.”  This is because Russel, like his counterparts on the right end of the spectrum, would first learn language from whole-to-part.  Russel would then learn to recombine parts in a way nicely described by Temple Grandin: “As I get more and more phrases on the “hard drive,” I can recombine them into different ways, and then (I sound) less tape recorder like.”

 

It was another six months, but Russel then entered the next stage of gestalt language learning, and learned to isolate single words: individual letter names, individual words in his phrases, including “I” and “we.”  He experienced the fun of combining all kinds of single words into two-word phrase.  When Russel got to this stage, I used the principles of Developmental Sentence Types, and encouraged every combination I could think of that would interest him.  Part 3 of the Natural Language Acquisition series charts the possibilities, once kids isolate the single word and begin to formulate original phrases “from scratch.”  For a visual reader like Russel, typical two and three-word phrases were things like, “a T,” “green T,” “a red E,” “spell ‘Boston’,” and “spell ‘emergency’.”

Stage 3 of the gestalt language acquisition process is magic… and, here, ASD kids learn all the things “typical” kids have already learned…that any word in the language can combine with any other, and form new cognitive concepts!  It is powerful stuff, and not to be hurried.  Our kids are behind, but that’s just because they started from a different place.  And, when they catch up, they will be much the wiser for having been visual and gestalt to begin with!  Stages 4-6 are well-known to Speech-Language Pathologists, not by that name, but they are now part of “typical” language development.  You will have people to help you now.

In Russel’s case, Stage 3 combinations took a unique twist, and Russel tended to combine words that were unexpected, often ludicrous…and usually funny!  Delayed, to be sure, but Russel’s verbal humor was emerging along with his earliest grammar!  Returning to joke about the “piece of orange” I mentioned in the last column, I hope you imagine how Russel spent his verbal practice time for age 4 to age 8!  It had been a ride I would not have wanted to miss!

We are about ready to close this series, dear reader.  I imagine you now understand many of the principles, and are feeling hopeful.  On the other hand, you are undoubtedly feeling a little trepidation about moving from the “key phrases” of your child’s “Chapter 4” to those unique, two-word phrases we all want to hear!  Well, of course you are!  But, please go back to the Natural Language Acquisition series, and try to put it all together in your mind.  Your child’s profile is different than Russel’s, to be sure, but please know that there is a pattern of interests in your child that has language to match.  I understand this because I have seen enough kids to know.  You can find that pattern, and take the next steps.  I know you can! 

And then, let’s start a dialogue, you and me.  You now know all the principles of language development for visual, gestalt thinkers, and we could do some real brain-storming together!  Please send me your thoughts and questions, and we will plan another column that addresses them.  And, you may have some perfect anecdotes for a much-needed book I’m writing!  Please contact me and share your stories!  All the best to you and your child!

Blanc, Marge, Finding the Word...To Tell the "Whole" Story, Natural Language Acquisition on the
          Spectrum, Part 2, July-August 2005 and Part 3, September-October 2005.
Grandin, Temple, Wisconsin Public Radio interview with Kathleen Dunn, February 18, 2005

                                                                           
Marge Blanc founded the Communication Development Center, in Madison, WI 10 years ago.  Specializing in physically-supported speech and language services for children with ASD diagnoses, CDC has successfully helped scores of children as they moved through the stages of language acquisition.  Contact Marge and her associates at:
 

Communication Development Center
700 Rayovac Drive, Suite 200
Madison, WI 53711
lyonblanc@aol.com
 

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