Assessment of Social-Emotional Status in Children With Language Impairments

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Assessment of Social-Emotional Status in
Children with Language Impairments
Carol Westby, Ph.D.,
1
and Evelyn Blalock, M.A.
1
ABSTRACT
Children with language impairments are at increased risk for
social-emotional difficulties that affect their ability to participate effectively
with peers and to establish quality friendships. Assessment of children with
language impairments should include evaluation of their social-emotional
status. A variety of methods are available for assessment of social-emotional
status: rating scales, sociometrics, self-reports/interviews, and observations.
Information gathered about social-emotional status should be incorporated
into therapeutic goals for children with language impairments.
KEYWORDS: Social-emotional, specific language impairment,
assessment
Learning Outcomes: As a result of this activity, the reader will be able to (1) list the formal and informal methods
for assessment of social-emotional difficulties in children with language impairments, (2) describe considerations
in the use of the various measures, and (3) identify the types of social-emotional difficulties commonly exhibited
by children with language impairments.
LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENTS AND
SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL STATUS
There is strong evidence that children initially
diagnosed with specific language impairments
(SLIs) exhibit social-emotional and behavioral
difficulties,
1
and increasingly there is evidence
that children initially referred for social-
emotional and behavioral problems are likely
to have language delays and disorders.
2
The
Manchester Language Study, which has ob-
served children with SLIs for 10 years, reports
that one third of the students have some type of
behavioral or emotional problems and a quarter
exhibit difficulties with social conversation.
Many of these children exhibit poor social
competence and are bullied by other students.
3
Types of Language Impairments
and Socioemotional Difficulties
What types of children exhibit SLI? Tradition-
ally, the diagnosis of SLI is based on a child
having cognitive skills within an average range
and deficits in lexical retrieval, syntax, and
Language and Social Competence: An Integrated Approach to Intervention; Editors in Chief, Audrey L. Holland, Ph.D.,
and Nan Bernstein Ratner, Ed.D.; Guest Editors, Bonnie Brinton, Ph.D., Martin Fujiki, Ph.D. Seminars in Speech and
Language, volume 26, number 3, 2005. Address for correspondence and reprint requests: Carol Westby, Ph.D., University of
New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM. E-mail: [email protected].
1
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Copyright #2005 by Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc., 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA. Tel: +1(212)
584-4662. 0734-0478,p;2005,26,03,160,169,ftx,en;ssl00240x.
160
morphology. Some children who do not have a
primary diagnosis of SLI may still have lan-
guage impairments (LIs). Children with atten-
tion deficit–hyperactivity disorders (particularly
the inattentive type) are likely to have comorbid
language-learning difficulties.
4
Many studies
have found that children identified with
ADHD are more likely to experience speech-
onset delays than typical children
5,6
and to be
diagnosed with a language disorder.
7–9
These
children may indeed have SLIs, but initially
their activity levels and inappropriate behavior
result in referrals, not their language skills.
Estimates of the overlap between ADHD and
SLI vary from a low of 8% to a high of 90%
depending on the precise definitions of SLI, the
nature of the SLI, and the methods used to
diagnose ADHD.
10
The social-emotional difficulties associated
with these varying types of language problems
can differ. Social-emotional /behavioral diffi-
culties are typically categorized as internalizing
and externalizing. Internalizing behaviors in-
clude anxiety/depression, withdrawal, and so-
matic complaints; externalizing behaviors
include attention problems, aggressive behav-
ior, and rule-breaking actions. Children with
SLI only are more typically viewed as exhibiting
internalizing symptoms such as withdrawal
behaviors. In contrast, children with ADHD
and comorbid SLI are viewed as exhibiting
externalizing symptoms, being inattentive and
showing aggressive behaviors. The matter is
probably not so simple. Social-emotional be-
havioral difficulties change over time for some
children, and different observers may notice
different behaviors.
11
For example, young chil-
dren who initially exhibit externalizing behav-
ior may be rejected by their peers and, as a
result, later exhibit internalizing problems in
place of or in addition to externalizing prob-
lems; and parents are more likely than teachers
to observe internalizing behaviors.
12,13
Why Assess Social-Emotional
Behaviors in Children with
Language Impairments?
Goals for children with LIs typically focus
on improving their phonological, semantic,
morphosyntactic, and discourse skills so that
they have improved communication skills in
listening, speaking, reading, and writing. To
provide services to school-age students, speech-
language pathologists (SLPs) must usually
demonstrate that the child’s LI affects his or
her academic performance. If a student’s aca-
demic performance is not obviously affected
(particularly if reading and writing skills are
not significantly below grade level), it can
be difficult to justify services for students whose
LIs primarily affect their social skills. Further-
more, it can be difficult to determine the degree
to which a child’s poor social skills are related
to pragmatic deficits (including difficulty in
interpreting nonverbal cues in the environment
and making appropriate predictions and giving
acceptable responses) and the degree to
which the poor social skills are related to
social-emotional/behavioral difficulties.
Pragmatic, social-emotional, and academic
skills can be interrelated in a variety of ways.
Children with LI are less reflective of their own
emotions and exhibit greater difficulty inferring
emotional reactions than their age-matched
peers.
14,15
Such behaviors affect their social
competence. Making inappropriate inferences
in social situations can have devastating effects.
This can affect children’s ability to make friends
and contribute to their hesitancy to become
involved with others or to aggressive behavior
when they misinterpret situations. Difficulty
interpreting emotions not only affects their
social interactions but also can affect their read-
ing comprehension.
16
Poor readers have diffi-
culty integrating information from multiple
sources in texts, recognizing cause-effect rela-
tionships in texts, and appropriately using their
own experiences and knowledge to ‘‘read be-
tween the lines’’ in texts. As a consequence, they
fail to comprehend much of what they read. If
students cannot make appropriate inferences in
their own social interactions, they will not have
an understanding of temporal and cause-effect
relationships to bring to the comprehension of
text.
In addition to difficulties children with LI
have in mastering the content of lessons,
they frequently have difficulty ‘‘doing school,’’
characterized by difficulty in participating in
classroom activities and lessons. Their deficits
in social skills limit their ability to participate
ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL STATUS/WESTBY, BLALOCK 161
fully in group activities.
17,18
Children who
participate in lessons do better academically
than those who do not actively participate.
19
Consequently, interventions that address
students’ interactions with peers in the class-
room can result in improved academic
performance.
Because one cannot really separate child-
ren’s social-emotional behaviors from their spe-
cific linguistic abilities and disabilities, effective
interventions for students with LI should ad-
dress both their linguistic and social-emotional
needs. SLPs are familiar with strategies for
evaluating student’s language abilities and dis-
abilities; they have been less familiar with
ways to evaluate students’ social-emotional be-
haviors. Many tools available for assessing
social-emotional behaviors in children focus
on externalizing behaviors. Educators tend to
be more aware of externalizing behaviors in
children because they disrupt their teaching.
In contrast, children with internalizing behav-
iors (e.g., anxiety, sadness, lack of friends)
may not be noticed by teachers, particularly
if they are making adequate academic
progress. This article will familiarize SLPs
with methods that are used to identify social-
emotional problems in students, considerations
in interpreting the methods, and strategies for
behavioral observations that may be most useful
for SLPs.
ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES
Evaluation of social-emotional patterns can be
done in a variety of ways:
*
Rating scales
*
Sociometric measures. These include either
nominations (e.g., ‘‘who are your three best
friends?’’) or ‘‘roster-and-rating’’ scales (using
a Likert scale to rate children on a variety of
dimensions)
*
Observations of the target child, both formal
and informal
*
Self-report and interview measures
Assessment should be triangulated in
terms of methods, respondents (parents, teach-
ers, peers, or target child), and settings for
observations.
Rating Scales
Standardized rating scales are considered a
reliable method of identifying social-emotional
behavioral problems in children and have been
used in many research studies investigating
social-emotional difficulties in children with
SLI. These scales, however, were generally
designed to identify students with psychiatric
disorders or significant social skills deficits, and
they tend to be better at identifying the stu-
dents who exhibit externalizing disorders rather
than internalizing disorders. Consequently,
they may not easily identify the students who
have milder social-emotional problems accom-
panying SLI.
20–23
Many rating scales are avail-
able; two that have been used frequently in
studies of children with LIs are the Child
Behavior Checklist (CBCL)
24
and the Social
Skills Rating Scale (SSRS).
25
(Children with
LI may not score within a ‘‘pathological’’ range
on these scales, but some of the items may give
SLPs insight into behaviors that affect child-
ren’s social-emotional adjustment.) Both of
these comprehensive evaluation systems follow
best practices for assessment by providing in-
formation from multiple sources and settings
and using multiple types of measures.
20,26,27
The CBCL system has forms for both pre-
school and school-age children, forms for pa-
rents and teachers, a form for direct observation
of the child (ages 5 to 14), a semistructured
clinical interview for ages 6 to 18 years, and a
self report for ages 11 to 18. The CBCL pre-
school and school-age forms provide scores on
internalizing problems, externalizing problems,
and total problems. Some examples of items of
internalizing behaviors a child may exhibit on
the anxious/depressed subscale are ‘‘too fearful
or anxious,’’ ‘‘nervous, highstrung, or tense,’’
and ‘‘unhappy, sad, or depressed’’; items from
the withdrawn subscale are ‘‘would rather be
alone than with others,’’ ‘‘refuses to talk,’’ and
‘‘underactive, slow moving, or lacks energy.’’
The SSRS has parent and teacher report
forms for children of ages 3 to 18 years and a
student self-report for grades 3 to 12. Each
form has a social skills scale and a problem
behaviors scale. The social skills scale measures
positive social behaviors such as cooperation,
empathy, assertion, self-control, and responsi-
bility; and the problem behaviors scale evaluates
162 SEMINARS IN SPEECH AND LANGUAGE/VOLUME 26, NUMBER 3 2005
externalizing problems such as aggressive acts
and poor temper control; internalizing prob-
lems such as ‘‘acts sad or depressed,’’ ‘‘shows
anxiety about being with a groups of children,’’
or ‘‘appears lonely’’; and a hyperactivity scale
that evaluates behaviors such as fidgeting and
impulsive acts.
Some concern has been expressed about
using these measures to identify social-emo-
tional problems in children with SLI because
several the items may be measuring effects from
the child’s LIs (e.g., ‘‘difficulties initiating con-
versations with peers,’’ ‘‘introduces himself-
herself to new people without being told,’’
‘‘appropriately tells you when he or she thinks
you have treated him or her unfairly’’) and
because teachers may have biased perceptions
of children with speech/language problems,
equating such problems with poor social com-
petence.
20,27,28
Although several items on the
CBCL and SSRS involve language, children
with LI could still make appropriate responses
(e.g., they could answer when spoken to or
indicate that they were treated unfairly) even
if they did not use age-appropriate language to
do so.
For children between ages 1 and 5 years,
the Vineland Social-Emotional Scale
29
would
be particularly useful for SLPs. It is designed
specifically for evaluating and monitoring levels
of social-emotional behavior in individuals with
disabilities and gauging how the disabilities
affect their daily functioning. Assessment re-
sults can be used for program planning and
selecting activities to meet an individual child’s
needs. Subscales measure interpersonal rela-
tionships (making friends, responding to social
communication, initiating social communica-
tion, cooperative interactions, belonging to
groups), play and leisure time (sharing and
cooperating, playing games, beginning group
activities), and coping skills (using manners in
conversation, being sensitive to others, control-
ling impulses, apologizing). The items on the
Vineland can be used more easily to select
intervention goals and activities.
Sociometrics
The teacher and parent rating forms of the
CBCL, SSRS, and Vineland provide an adult
perspective of a child’s behavior. Sociometric
procedures can provide information regarding
how peers view the targeted child and how the
targeted child views his or her interactions with
others. A significant finding from sociometric
studies has been the lack of friends and poor
quality of friendships for children with
SLI.
30,31
Children with SLI named peers as
their friends when the friendship was not re-
ciprocal and when the child was even listed as a
least favorite child in play. Apparently, some
children with SLI may lack social skills to
understand how peers really feel about them.
Sociometric measures include either nom-
inations or roster-and-rating scales.
32
Peer
nominations consist of asking children to nom-
inate peers according to nonbehavioral criteria
such as best friends, most preferred play part-
ners, or least preferred play partners. Four types
of children may be identified through these
procedures
33
:
*
Popular: children who receive many positive
and few negative nominations
*
Average: children with neither unusually
many nor unusually few positive or negative
nominations
*
Neglected: children who receive few nomi-
nations of any sort; they tend to lack friends
but are not disliked by their peers
*
Controversial: children who receive many
positive and many negative nominations
*
Rejected: children who receive few positive
and many negative votes; they lack friends
and are actively disliked by many peers
Although preschool children who are
withdrawn are likely to be ignored or neglected,
8- to 10-year-olds who are withdrawn (espe-
cially boys) are seen as different by their peers
and either rejected or viewed as ‘‘easy marks’’ for
bullying.
Sociometric rating scales provide ‘‘greater
reliability’’ than nomination,
34
especially with
younger children.
35
Nomination provides in-
formation on extremes, such as the children
who are most or least liked or a child’s three
best friends. Children may be liked and
accepted but just not nominated as most
liked or as a best friend.
36
Asher and
his colleagues
32,34,37
developed a variety of
ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL STATUS/WESTBY, BLALOCK 163
sociometric rating scales. Students can be given
a question to answer using a Likert scale for
each student on a class list. Examples of ques-
tions for elementary ages are ‘‘How much do
you like playing with this child at school?’’ and
‘‘How much do you like to work with this child
at school?’’
32
Faces can be used instead of
numbers of the Likert scale to indicate these
choices to young students, from a sad face to a
neutral face to a happy face. Three faces or a
three-point Likert scale can be used for younger
children from preschool to first grade,
34
and
five faces can be used for second grade and
above.
32
Pictures of classmates can be used with
young children in the place of class lists. For
example, children can assign pictures of each
classmate into one of three circles that depict
either a happy face (‘‘children you like to play
with a lot’’), a neutral face (‘‘children you ‘kinda’
like to play with’’), or a sad face (‘‘children you
don’t like to play with’’).
31
Observation
Sociometric measures indicate the extent to
which children have friends or are ignored or
rejected by peers, but they do not provide
information about the behaviors that determine
a child’s sociometric status. Whether or not
SLPs use sociometric methods, they can ob-
serve children in group interactions, noting
whether they consistently work and play with
others or whether they are neglected or rejected
by peers and determining the behaviors that
might contribute to children having friends
or being neglected or rejected. Observation is
perhaps the most important method of assess-
ment, often identifying what other methods
have failed to detect.
21–23
Observation meas-
ures are more effective in identifying emerging
problem behaviors or behaviors not yet signifi-
cant enough to be detected by rating scales.
22
Children with SLI may have difficulties that
have not yet reached clinical levels but that
impair their interactions and performance in
classrooms. Intervention in the early stages of
the development of social and emotional prob-
lems is more effective than intervention after
the behavior has reached clinical levels.
38
Like rating scales, formal observational
systems tend to include more externalizing
than internalizing behaviors because external-
izing behaviors are easier to observe and more
quantifiable. Ten-minute observations sessions
are typical for formal observation systems. It
may be difficult to notice internalizing behav-
iors of a child during those short observation
sessions, especially if the observer does not
know the child well. The CBCL includes a dir-
ect observation component (CBCL-DOF) that
involves narrative descriptions of 10-minute
observations sessions that are later rated on a
detailed rating system. It can be used to observe
multiple group settings including time in
the classroom and playground. The tool pro-
vides scores for internalizing and externalizing
problems and time on task, along with a total
problem behavior score. It includes items
to identify withdrawn-inattentive, nervous-
obsessive, depressed, hyperactive, attention-
demanding, and aggressive behavior but it does
not provide information on how these behav-
iors influence peer interactions. Walker and
Severson
39
included as part of their Systematic
Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD) an
observation tool, the Peer Social Behavior Code
(PBS), that is designed to be used with first
through sixth graders during free play situations
such as the playground. Children’s behavior is
coded for positive or negative social engage-
ment, positive or negative participation, parallel
play, alone, and no codable behavior. The PBS
allows the observer to note more specific be-
haviors that influence children’s being accepted,
neglected, or rejected.
Qi and Kaiser
23
developed a simple system
to observe problem behaviors in preschool chil-
dren with language delays. (The manual for the
observational system is available from Qi at
[email protected].) Children are observed in both
structured activities (circle time, small group
work, independent work) and unstructured ac-
tivities (playtime). The following are events/
behaviors to note: target child initiation/peer
positive response, target child initiation/peer
negative response, aggression to peer/adults,
and disruptive behavior (nondirected, inappro-
priate behavior that is not obviously directed to
another person).
The videotape series When a Child
Doesn’t Play, produced by Educational Pro-
ductions (www.edpro.com), provides superb
164 SEMINARS IN SPEECH AND LANGUAGE/VOLUME 26, NUMBER 3 2005
guidelines for social-emotional behavioral pat-
terns to observe that inhibit preschool child-
ren’s ability to participate in play. Six types
of children are described: children who are
ignored, who are rejected, who appear anxious,
who appear aloof, who wander, and who dabble
(do not really engage in activities). Full tran-
scripts of each tape and clips from each tape
are available on the Web site. The social-
emotional, behavioral characteristics of each
type of children are depicted and strategies are
provided for facilitating each type of child’s
ability to engage successfully in play. Children
who are ignored have difficulty getting the
attention of others, entering play, finding a
role in play, carrying out play roles, and giving
clear messages. Children who are rejected tend
to be aggressive, are bossy or try to control play,
are unaware of the impact of their behavior on
others, and have difficulty sharing and taking
turns. SLPs can identify each of these behaviors
and incorporate strategies in their inventions
to improve children’s abilities to interact with
their peers.
Whatever observational system is used
when observing a targeted child, the SLP
should note the child’s general interactional
styles:
*
The child who moves toward other children
(typical). This child is generally appropriately
involved with others and what is going on at
the moment.
*
The child who moves against other children
(aggressive). This child is uninhibited and has
trouble controlling anger and other negative
emotions.
*
The child who moves away from other chil-
dren (withdrawn). This child is inhibited and
has trouble controlling fear.
SELF-REPORT AND INTERVIEW MEASURES
FOR STUDENTS
Rating scales or observations can be used
to make judgments about a child’s social-
emotional adjustment, but it can also be im-
portant to understand how the child perceives
and feels about his or her social interactions. Is
the child happy? Is the child aware of his or her
withdrawn or aggressive behaviors? Does the
child feel included? Assessment of children’s
friendships may be best facilitated by self-report
measures that are supported by information
gathered through direct observation.
36
Self-
report is difficult for young children. Formal
self-reports are generally not done before mid-
elementary school. The SSRS has a self-report
questionnaire for grades 3 to 12, and the CBCL
has a self-report for 11- to 18-year-olds and a
structured interview for 6- to 18-year-olds.
The Friendship Quality Questionnaire
(FQQ)
36
is a 40-item scale using a 5-point
Likert scale. (There are briefer versions.) The
child is asked to identify his or her best friend.
The child then responds to each item in terms
of this best friend. A limitation of this scale is
that children’s assessment of their friendships
may not be accurate. In other words, the chil-
dren they identify as their friends may see the
relationship differently than they do. It can be
helpful to compare information from their
questionnaire with the results of their friends’
questionnaires or to give the target children and
their classmates the names or pictures of class-
mates and have them name or point to pictures
of their three best friends, then to look for
reciprocal friendships.
Loneliness is an emotion that everyone
feels at various times. It can also be an indicator
of deeper issues with negative peer relation-
ships. The Illinois Loneliness and Social Dis-
satisfaction Scale questionnaire is designed to
assess loneliness in different school settings
(i.e., lunchroom, playground), children’s per-
ception of their own social competence and
peer status, social adequacy and inadequacy
issues, and the quality of their friendships.
40,41
Table 1 shows examples of friendship and lone-
liness questionnaire items. Asher and Gazelle
40
found that third through sixth grade students
with SLI reported serious issues with lone-
liness. Brinton and Fujiki
28
reported that half
of the SLI respondents in their study were 1 to
2 standard deviations below the mean on the
Loneliness Questionnaire.
The friendship and loneliness question-
naires may be most helpful when supported
by direct observation and roster-and-rating
scale sociometrics. First use roster-and-rating
scales to identify reciprocal friendships. Then
further explore the quality of those friendships
ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL STATUS/WESTBY, BLALOCK 165
by administering the Friendship Questionnaire
to the child with SLI and the child’s identified
friends. Then administer the Loneliness Ques-
tionnaire in an interview format. Confirm,
disconfirm, and expand the information gained
through the preceding measures through direct
observation across settings.
Other Approaches to
Socioemotional Assessment
All of the measures described so far document
how a child typically behaves or feels. When
children exhibit social-emotional difficulties in
interactions, the assumption may be made that
the child lacks the necessary social knowledge
of how to behave in particular situations or that
the child might know how to behave but is
debilitated by anxiety or lack of confidence.
Another possibility is that the child simply
chooses not to exhibit certain behaviors. To
sort out social-emotional difficulties from social
skill /knowledge deficits, one needs to use as-
sessment procedures that measure children’s
social knowledge independent of the pressures,
constraints, and motivations of real-life per-
formance situations. Social skills knowledge
can be evaluated formally through measures
that assess pragmatic knowledge (such as the
Test of Pragmatic Language
42
) or more infor-
mally through problem-solving types of tasks.
One must recognize, however, that students’
declarative knowledge of how to perform in
social situations does not ensure that they will
use this knowledge in actual situations. Educa-
tors and SLPs should determine whether the
deficits children exhibit in social situations are
due to lack of knowledge (a skill deficit) or
failing to use knowledge (a performance defi-
cit), which could be due to anxiety or lack of
confidence, or occur because the child is moti-
vated by other social goals.
PROBLEM-SOLVING STORIES
Simulation or problem-solving tasks can pro-
vide information about what children know and
can do as opposed to what they do do. Shure and
Spivack
43
provided children with the begin-
nings (goals) of stories and the ends of stories
(resolution) and asked them to complete the
middle of the stories. They observed that chil-
dren with behavioral problems had difficulty
completing the middle of stories; in contrast,
well-adjusted elementary school children were
able to fill in the middle of problem-solving
stories by giving multiple sequential steps to the
solution and by suggesting obstacles that might
arise and ways around the obstacles. Well-
adjusted adolescents were able to consider the
thought processes of others in solving inter-
personal problems. The Shure and Spivack
tasks can be adapted to evaluate a child’s inter-
personal problem-solving skills.
The following types of stories can be used
with students older than 8 years. The stories
should be made less abstract by providing
familiar contexts or situations that would be
of interest to the child. Character names are
Table 1 Sample Items from Self-Report Questionnaires
Loneliness Questionnaire Friendship Quality Questionnaire
Peer relationships: ‘‘I have lots of friends in
my class.’’
Validation and caring: ‘‘make each other feel
important and special’’
Relationship needs met: ‘‘There are no other kids
I can go to when I need help in school.’’
Conflict and betrayal: ‘‘sometimes says mean
things about me to other kids’’
Loneliness: ‘‘I feel alone at school.’’ ‘‘I feel left out
of things at school.’’
Companionship and recreation: ‘‘always play
together at recess’’
Self-perception of social competence: ‘‘I’m good at
working with others in my class.’’
Help and guidance: ‘‘give advice with figuring
things out’’
Intimate exchange: ‘‘tell each other private things’’
Conflict resolution: ‘‘make up easily when
we have a fight’’
166 SEMINARS IN SPEECH AND LANGUAGE/VOLUME 26, NUMBER 3 2005
changed to match the gender of the clients
being evaluated. The child is told, ‘‘I am going
to tell you the beginning and the end of a story.
I want you to tell me what happened in the
middle of the story.’’
*
Minh’s father got a new job. The family had
to move to [Santa Fe]. Minh had many
friends when she lived in [El Paso], but
now she didn’t know anyone. She felt very
lonely. Minh wanted to have friends in her
new school. The story ends with Minh having
many good friends and feeling accepted in the
school. Tell me what happened in between
Minh’s moving and feeling lonely and when
she ends up having many good friends.
(If no response, ask, ‘‘What did Minh do to
make friends?’’)
*
Jafar was not getting along with his soccer
coach. Jafar was very unhappy about this. The
story ends with Jafar’s getting along well with
his coach. Tell me what happened between
the time Jafar was not getting along well with
his coach and when he was getting along well.
COMPUTER PROGRAMS
Computer programs provide another type of
simulation methodology. Programs such as
Nickel Takes on Teasing
44
or Nickel Takes on
Anger
45
can be used to explore how children
interpret and feel about situations. (A compact
disk [CD] on developing friendships is in the
planning stage.) These are interactive CDs for
elementary school students that provide them
with opportunities to witness teasing or anger,
to determine how to respond, and to determine
consequences of different responses. The CDs
use 12 different scenes to take students through
Nickel Kapinski’s experiences. Text of the sto-
ries appears with each scene. The software
program reads text aloud. Children are to
respond to situations that involve getting
teased, teasing others, and seeing teasing or
getting angry, seeing anger, or having others
angry at you. For example, Nickel is teased when
the teacher introduces her in class. A student
says, ‘‘Hello Pickle Ketchupski.’’ Nickel sees
teasing in the cafeteria when Bobby spills spa-
ghetti all over his shirt. Jeral, a boy sitting near
Bobby, shouts, ‘‘Slow down, Slobbie Bobby! ’’
And she has opportunities to tease when a girl
bumps into her, spilling her books. For each
situation, the student chooses a response for
Nickel. Before choosing a response, students
can click on a character to hear what they are
thinking about; for example, when deciding
what to say when she sees Jeral teasing Bobby
because he spilled his spaghetti, Nickel thinks:
I think Jeral is being mean to Bobby. It
was just an accident. I could say something to
make Bobby feel better. But what if Jeral teases
me too?
Once the student selects a response, the
screen moves back to the situation, the choice is
played out, and the reason for the character’s
behavior is explained. The SLP works through
the CD with the child, discussing reasons for
the child’s selection of responses. The child’s
responses to the program can be compared with
information gathered through direct observa-
tion of the child’s behaviors.
USING SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL
INFORMATION
Research has demonstrated that there is a high
comorbidity rate between language disorders
and socioemotional /behavioral difficulties. It
is unclear, however, whether the LIs cause the
social-emotional /behavioral problems or vice
versa. It is more likely that LIs, social, and
behavioral problems interact and consequently
exacerbate a child’s social and adjustment diffi-
culties.
46
Because LIs and social-emotional
behaviors are so intertwined, both should be
addressed in intervention programs. Docu-
menting effectiveness of language intervention
should not be limited to documenting changes
in students’ vocabulary, morphosyntactic, and
discourse skills as measured by standardized
tests or language samples. Improved language
skills will not, by themselves, result in improved
academic and social skills. Consequently,
SLPs should also document changes in stu-
dents’ social-emotional status. The procedures
described in this article provide some
mechanisms for documenting socioemotional
changes.
ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL STATUS/WESTBY, BLALOCK 167
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