Amy
Author: Lehman Graduate Student
1
Emergent Bilingual Child Study
Amy, 7-years old
Author: Lehman Graduate Student Emergent Bilingual Child Study. The class consists of a diverse group that comes from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds: Chinese, Hispanic, European American, and African American. The majority of the students were American born, except for the two Chinese students who were born in China and immigrated to the U.S. at a very young age (e.g., approximately 2-3 years old). They communicate with each other primarily in English. Occasionally, the Chinese spoken language was observed among the two Chinese students and the paraprofessional during informal conversational exchange.
Child
The student I observed is a first grader named Amy (pseudonym). She is in a 12:1:1 self-contained classroom with one special education teacher and a classroom paraprofessional. The class consists of a diverse group that comes from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds: Chinese, Hispanic, European American, and African American. The majority of the students were American born, except for the two Chinese students who were born in China and immigrated to the U.S. at a very young age (e.g., approximately 2-3 years old). They communicate with each other primarily in English. Occasionally, the Chinese spoken language was observed among the two Chinese students and the paraprofessional during informal conversational exchange.
Context
The classroom is divided into two instructional areas: a whole class meeting space and a small group instruction space. During a whole group instruction, all the students are seated on a rug in front of the classroom where a smartboard is hanging on the wall and the teacher’s desk is right next to it. After a whole group instruction, the teacher divides the class into two groups for differentiated instruction. The paraprofessional would stay with one group of students and provide them with more support (e.g., reteach, graphic organizers, visual cues, and verbal prompts). A physical divider is utilized to separate the two groups so that they can be more focused. Students in this class exhibit behavioral regulatory problems. Folder and movable board dividers are needed to support their behavior. Overall, the teacher and the paraprofessional have made a wonderful team in providing child-centered education. Furthermore, the classroom is overall organized and has different areas designated for various subjects. A quiet reading corner is located next to the smartboard and divided by a medium-sized bookshelf. It appears very cozy and comfortable to sit on the cushions to enjoy a book-reading experience. The library consists of many bins of leveled books, which are labeled by different color-coded dots on each book. Various genres such as non-fiction, realistic fiction, fiction, etc. are displayed on the bookshelf. There are a few books, which are written in Chinese. Next to the library, a match center contains student portfolios, manipulatives, games, textbooks, and a math bulletin board where students’ math projects are displayed. In addition, the science bulletin board is right next to the math one and shows students’ science projects as well. There are three computers and a printer in the classroom. It allows teachers and students to use the multimedia approach in instruction.
Family, Social, and Educational Background:
Amy is a 7-year-old bilingual Mandarin-English speaking student who has enrolled in this school since kindergarten. She was born in China and immigrated to the U.S. with her family at 3 years of age. She currently resides with her father, mother, grandparents, and a 9-year-old brother in Flushing, Queens Reportedly, grandparents take care of Amy and her brother most of the time because her parents are occupied by their full-time jobs. They both work in a Chinese restaurant for 6 days a week from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. This is common for those new immigrant families in the community. Additionally, since her parents do not speak English, she is primarily exposed to Mandarin in the home. Amy prefers to speak in Chinese 85% of the time with her parents and speaks English only to her brother. She watches cartoons and TV shows in both English and Chinese. It is reported by her parents that Amy exhibits challenging behavior (e.g., screaming, easily frustrated, and difficulty sharing) when playing with her brother in the home. Parents reported that they do not know how to handle the emotional breakdowns and challenging behavior.
Behavioral Observation:
Amy presents as a friendly, cooperative, and social student. She appears taller than most of her peers and often wears a sweater in the classroom. It is observed that Amy’s clothing may appear unclean at times. As reported by Ms. Reyes, Amy enjoys making friends with her peers and respects the adults in the classroom. She engages in cooperative and social play during recess. For instance, she invites her friends to play a game with her and shares toys with her peers. Additionally, Amy yearns to please and follow directions in the classroom. She engages appropriately in reciprocal conversational exchange with peers and adults. Furthermore, Amy initiates and maintains conversations with peers. However, Amy exhibits difficulty remaining focused and motivated during structured tasks (e.g., whole group lessons). For instance, during small group discussions, when a reading comprehension question was presented by a teacher and required her to orally give an answer, she avoided responding by exhibiting self-directed behaviors (e.g., She got out of her seat and interrupted students sitting next to her.) . She exhibits difficulty transitioning between activities. When redirection such as a reminder of a rule (e.g., Pay attention when the teacher is speaking) and positive reinforcement such as “Remember you will get points if you participate in the task” was given, Amy was able to follow directions and refocus on the task. Furthermore, with small group instruction, she responds better to questions with medium support such as visuals, verbal prompts, and modeling. Additionally, Amy expresses that she is interested in using an iPad to watch videos. She also enjoys playing board games with her peers. What’s more, Amy expresses that she loves to play swings and slides in the playground. She indicates that she is good at painting, drawing, and math, however, she needs more help in reading and writing.
Language Ability/Performance
Due to her expressive and receptive language impairment, Amy receives bilingual speech-language services twice a week with one individual and one group session. In speech, Amy has been working on responding to WH-questions (e.g., who, what, what doing, where, when) using complete sentences to retell a story and/or describe picture scenes and making inferences by providing context clues from a visual or text. Receptively, she has demonstrated progress in answering WH-questions (e.g., who, what doing, where, and when) about picture scenes, about the activity at hand, and after a read aloud. She continues to show difficulty answering why questions when given visuals and verbal prompts. Amy requires extended wait time to respond (about 10-15 seconds) and benefits from visual cues. Expressively, Amy primarily verbalized 5-6 simple sentences using keywords and conjunctions to retell a story when given verbal prompts, visuals, and verbal modeling. She inconsistently produced story grammar elements (e.g., character, setting, problem, feeling1, action, solution, and feeling2) when retelling a story. However, she has been observed including more story grammar elements when provided with visuals, verbal cues, and modeling. She exhibited difficulty in morphosyntax in both English and Chinese 73(e.g., The girl office take shots/ The girl went to doctor’s office to take some shots.) and reduced important details when retelling a story. Moreover, Amy answers inferential questions about picture scenes of familiar topics (e.g., getting ready for bed, going to a birthday party); however, she continues to exhibit difficulty understanding inferential questions about simple reading passages. Additionally, it was observed that Amy demonstrated difficulty in writing assignments. For instance, she required extended time to organize her thoughts and write down the sentences. She exhibited the ability to write more sentences when given verbal and/or written sentence frames. It is helpful to observe Amy’s behavior and language skills in both Chinese and English to understand her language abilities and needs.
Instructional Implications/Recommendations
With the observation and interaction with Amy and the research and knowledge of technology and developmentally appropriate practice, a plan of care will be created to target the speech and language goals. With telepractice, I will ensure to review the guidelines for delivering services through technology before encountering Amy’s parents. Obtaining a written consent form from Amy’s parents is necessary before starting telepractice. Additionally, I will need to use a HIPPA-compliant platform for videoconferencing (e.g., Google Meet). To begin, I will need to have all the instructions for videoconferencing for Amy’s parents in a written Chinese form and send it to them via email. Through a phone call, I will explain to them the process of receiving telepractice. Asking questions about whether they are in need of a tablet or if they have a quiet space for Amy to receive therapy at home will prepare the parents and set the expectations for them. I will also explain that one of the parents need to be the support personnel with technology and behavioral management to ensure the success of speech therapy through telepractice. To ensure an open and honest communication, I will also remind the parents to contact me through email if they have any questions. Once all the necessary steps are completed, delivering the first session will include setting rules for Amy since it may be difficult for her to stay engaged during the session. For instance, Amy should show me that she is paying attention by following directions, answering questions, and keeping her eyes on the camera. I can assess her ability of using the computer and whether other support may be needed when targeting speech-language goals. Moreover, it is important for Amy to come prepared for speech, therefore, reminding the parents to ensure Amy is fed and dressed properly before session starts. She may also need to bring a paper and a pencil for her to write on. During the first session, we will review some speech-language goals with Amy in a child-friendly language. For instance, Amy will learn to make longer and strong sentences. Most importantly, to manage Amy’s behaviors, I will use a reward system such as ClassDojo points to keep her motivated. If obtaining enough points, Amy will obtain an opportunity to play an online educational game, drawing a picture with me using Google Drawing, and listen to music and dance as a break. Brain breaks will also be incorporated into the sessions to engage Amy. In addition, in terms of targeting Amy’s speech-language goals, comprehensive input will also be used. For instance, code-switching between English and Chinese will help Amy to build on her lexical diversity and provide models of correct word orders in both languages. In addition, a variety of techniques such as verbal modeling, visuals, hands-on activities, gestures, and body language will make the content concepts clearer for Amy to comprehend. Other speech appropriate method to meet Amy’s language proficiency level is to use slower rate of speech.
To support Amy in working on her speech-language goals, several strategies such as scaffolding techniques and a variety of question types will be implemented into sessions.
Goal #1:
Within one year, given visual prompting (sequencing cards, picture book), Amy will independently use a complete sentence format to answer “who”, “what”, “What doing”, “Where”, “when” questions in 8 out of 10 opportunities.
Strategies: Using Wh-question words such as “Who, what, what doing, where, and when” and/or WH-question anchor charts as visuals. Before the activities, this strategy will be introduced to Amy and she will familiarize herself with the function of the anchor charts.
Activities:
1. Picture description task: Creating Google Slides of real photos and adding WH-questions anchor charts as visuals Real photos consist of daily life activities such as eating breakfast, riding a bike, cooking a meal, funny pictures such as a bearing driving a car, a pig flying in the sky, and specific events such as celebration, at the beach, in the restaurant, etc. First, one picture will be presented, and I will prompt Amy by asking, “What do you see in this picture?” If more support is needed, I will ask more direct questions such as What is this? Where is this place? What is she/he doing? while pointing at the picture. If Amy answers with a 2-3-word utterance, verbal modeling such as, He is riding a bike will be provided to facilitate the production of complete sentences.
2. Wordless picture books: Using wordless picture books to target answering WH-questions with complete sentences.Age-appropriate wordless picture books will be utilized to work on answering WH-question e.g., Who is the main character? What is she doing?) using complete simple sentences
3. Wordless videos: Using wordless videos to target answering WH-questions with complete sentences. Age-appropriate and short wordless videos will be utilized to work on answering WH-question (e.g., Who is the main character? What is she doing?) using complete simple sentences.
Goal #2:
Within one year, when given visual prompting (sequencing cards and picture book), Amy will produce a narrative retell that includes basic story grammar elements 120 (e.g., characters, setting, problem, solution) in a logical and sequential order in 3 out of 5 opportunities.
Strategies:
Using story grammar elements icons such as character, setting, feeling, problem, action, solution and visual cues such as sequencing cards. Before the activities, this strategy will be introduced to Amy and she will explain what each icon means.
Activities:
1. Wordless picture books: Using wordless picture books to target story retell. Age-appropriate wordless picture books will be utilized to work on retelling the story. First, I will ask WH-question (e.g., Who is the main character? What is she doing?) to assess comprehension of the story. Then, using the story grammar element icons, Amy will retell the story. Wordless videos: Using wordless videos to target story retell. Age-appropriate and short wordless videos will be utilized to work on retelling the story. First, I will ask WH-question (e.g., Who is the main character? What is she doing?) to assess comprehension of the story. Then, using the story grammar element icons, Amy will retell the story. To conclude, with the knowledge of technology and developmentally appropriate practices, I as a speech teacher I may provide linguistically and culturally appropriate services to Amy and other students with similar backgrounds.
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Not having a structured timed protocol may the meeting be jeopardized by those participants who monopolize it talking without stoping.
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I think it’s important to both validate the parents’ observations and to not assume that there is something wrong with the home environment that is creating the challenging behavior. Equally important is to use this information to try to look beneath the good behavior to find the expectations or challenges that the child might be struggling with at school.
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Also, since Amy spends most of her time with her grandmother, it will be a great idea to have her participate as well.
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