Testing Abstract Language Comprehension - anyone?

[TapselteerieO]

DS (possible mild, which seems a misnomer sometimes, asd, no dx yet) had a sheet home from school saying he had been tested, I have googled, but am not much wiser - has anyone here got experience of this? I will speak to the teacher (he sees this teacher once a week and they work on communication & social skills), but I'd just like an idea of what it is all about.

TIA.

I guess if he's got ASD his concrete language skills will be much better than his abstract ones. My DS was excellent at age 6 with his concrete naming skills, eg naming things he could see or touch. He could name when shown a picture a lighthouse or a stethoscope. He had much more trouble with the abstract. Eg fear, love, sympathy, emotions and the like that cannot be seen or touched. Why people enjoy something he doesn't.

There is a great learning tool called Language for Thinking which I use at my school ( I'm a 1 to 1 TA) which goes through a typical scenario and then you ask questions about it starting in the concrete and getting gradually more abstract. Eg A child called John painting and someone spills the paint. You ask "who is painting, who spilled the paint, is the teacher cross, why is she cross?" etc. Even children with really good vocab and great reading skills on the spectrum can have trouble answering the why questions. This tool is designed to assess but also increase children's skills.

I don't know what assessment the EP used but it's probably to make sure teachers aren't assuming they are getting better understanding from your DS than they should.

Starlight, I think this is it.

Hi Star. It's a book of photocopy-able simple stories with questions and a picture for each 'scenario' split into 3 levels. You first assess the child to see what level questions to ask. You start working with them on an easy level where they have a picture of the scene and you read them the story. Only 6 or 7 lines. Eg
Sam walked outside with his mum.
Sam's grandparents hugged Sam.
Sam said "Goodbye!"
Sam's grandparents got onto their car.
Sam and his mum waved to his grandparents.

There's a picture of Sam and his mum smiling and waving off the grandparents in a car.

There are 3 levels of questions, 6 in each level.

Level a eg Who is in the story?
Level b eg What will Sam and his mum do next?
Level c eg Why do you think Sam and his mum will do X ( what child answered to b) and not go with his grandparents.

Each q is scored 0 to 3 depending on how well and relevantly it's answered. You are allowed to prompt but they will score less to keep confidence and flow going. Also gives rise to discussions. Eg how
do you feel when you have to say goodbye to your granny? Etc

Later they read the story themselves with picture, later text only.

The dc I support has excellent reading skills, a bit hyperlexic though, and finds the c level questions really hard despite high reading age! Younger and less able children may only have level a or a and b questions. I miss out many level a as DC finds them a bit patronising. But ask him what's the difference between a car and a train and he's stumped!

Lovely resource recommended by the advisory ASD teacher from LA (good for something) especially written for ASD type children. My own son used it with his TA also.

Sorry to hi- jack thread!

Yes moosemama! That's it! It's at school so haven't got it in front of me so can't remember what age it's recommended for. The DC I support is v HF ASD and dyspraxic age 10 and he's only just 'young' enough. We're right at the hardest level. I'd say could start at 5 or 6 depending on ability. The pictures are all very young children. Reception key stage 1 but DC at school really enjoys it age 10! Better than real work!

Hijack away Ellen, I am grateful for a response, this is where ds's test was from, based on who, what, where and why questions - I haven't had a good look yet.

The book looks good!

I hope we managed to answer your questions. I wasn't sure how much you already knew about the subject so sorry if it was a bit basic. Was that the sort of thing you were after? And sorry again for the hijack.

My apologies for the hijack too.

I know nothing about it really, it isn't something I have come across until today.

He might be deceptively good at reading and have a good vocabulary but actually struggle with comprehension. He might find it hard to infer(read between the lines) and predict what might happen next. Most NT children who struggle with literacy would probably have no problem understanding the story etc if read to them, but might have real difficulty actually reading. Children with ASD are very different and their problems with literacy come from a different direction due to their difficulty putting themselves in others shoes and lack of imagination. Teachers won't have many children with ASD types of difficulties so they are asking the EP to find out if your DS has these abstract language problems. Then hopefully the teacher can help your DS with his specific needs which will be different to other NT DC who outwardly seem to be of a similar ability. Their problems will need different solutions. HTH

Hi, the test I think your child has is the "Test of Abstract Language Comprehension" (ELKLAN publish this) which is based on the same research that underpins the Language for Thinking materials - this is a study by Blank and Rose (I think??) in 1978 about teacher talk in the classroom.

Although it's old, it's very relevant - I use it in observations of teacher talk in secondary settings and can still see these types of questions being used.

I often think that if I ever get around to doing my PhD I will replicate it in KS2/KS3 classrooms.

When we use the Language for Thinking materials, we use them in a very flexible sort of way to arrive at the best answers and work out strategies for dealing with inference. We then gradually increase the difficulty of the reading material and reduce the pictorial support.. At secondary we change the pictorial support so it is more relevant to their lives, using the question formats but taking pics off line etc. I think that starting with the Language for Thinking stuff as it is a good way of getting you and your child into the "mindset" of looking at levels of abstraction in language. Really easy to generalise into real life too.

HTH

Ooops, you already linked to this!

Language for Thinking splits questions into 3 levels - A, B and C. They are in 4 levels in the TALC - 1, 2, 3 and 4. 3 is the one that I find most kids with ASD struggle with as it requires you to do more than one thing with information.

Some kids with HFA can do well on this test but if you increase the difficulty of the material but test it in a similar way they start to come undone.

It's a good tool! I prefer the Language for Thinking to the ELKLAN book - I was disappointed with the suggestions in the ELKLAN book for carryover into class.

If support in you class do ELKLAN training, they are trained to use the Blank model to support learning. I am doing this training at the moment. It's pretty solid for support, covers a lot of strategies (disclaimer: obviously not at the level of say, ABA etc, but in a general m/s classroom it really improves things IME).

Thanks working9while5, I will try and look into it all a bit more.