Word Finding Difficulties

 Differential Diagnosis & Word Finding Intervention

 

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Word Finding Difficulties in the Classroom

 

 

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Word Finding Difficulties in the Classroom

Classroom Behaviors That May Indicate Word Finding Difficulties

Clinical reports and anecdotal evidence suggest that certain behaviors in the classroom may indicate that students are having Word Finding difficulties. This section of the web site presents examples of these behaviors. Students who display these behaviors in the classroom may benefit from deep assessment and follow up intervention in Word Finding. Click here for procedures to obtain classroom based observations of learners' Word Finding skills in the classroom.

Classroom behaviors that may suggest Word Finding difficulties are presented according to the classroom and academic activities below.

boy thinking

"My words are like fish and I can't catch the one I want."

Word Finding Behaviors Displayed in Oral Questioning

Slow and Inaccurate Retrievers

  • The student has a long delay and does not give a response or produces a substitution similar in meaning or sound form to the answer. However, when the student is given a choice of answers, he or she is able to select the correct answer.
  • The student has a long delay, but when given the first sound or syllable of the target word, he or she is able to answer the question.
  • Minutes or hours later the student remembers the answer to the question.

Fast and Inaccurate Retrievers

  • The student is quick to respond in class, but his or her first response is typically incorrect. He or she may self correct. However, when given a choice of answers, he or she is able to select the correct answer.

Slow and Accurate Retrievers

  • The student is able to answer questions correctly, if given extended time.

Student May Display Secondary Characteristics

  • The student displays gestures that suggest he or she is searching for the answer.
  • The student verbalizes such comments as: "Oh, I know that answer, but I can't think of it."

 

Word Finding Behaviors Displayed in Class Discussion, Cooperative Groups, or in Conversations

  • The student produces many repetitions in his or her sentences.
  • The student has many reformulations (revisions) in his or her discourse.
  • The student produces target word substitutions in his or her speech. These substitutions may be words that are similar in meaning to the target word or they may be words that sound like the target word.
  • The student has long delays in the middle of sentences as he or she searches for a word.
  • The student produces a lot of Time Fillers (um, er uh,) in the middle of his or her sentences.
  • The student describes the referent of the word that he or she is unable to retrieve.
  • In the middle of an explanation, a student may say " I just can't think of the word." or "Wait! I will think of it."
  • The student may be very brief in his or her narratives often not willing to discuss topics in length.



black-haired boy

"Usually...no, it's  useful...no, it's useless! I really knew the word was'useless' from the beginning. I looked at it and knew what it was, but my mouth read the other two words first. It is so frustrating."

 

Word Finding Behaviors Displayed in Reading


Silent Reading is Superior to Oral Reading
  • Although the student fails to produce the sounds of letters, he or she is able to point to the letters that match the sounds the teacher says ("Show me ...").
  • Although the student fails to orally read a word, he or she is a able to find that same word in the text when he or she hears the teacher say the word ("Point to the word ...").
  • Although the student is not able to orally read a nonsense word or a real word, he or she is able to select the words from written or oral choices.
  • Although the student appears to make many decoding errors in oral reading, he or she is able to correctly answer multiple-choice comprehension questions when he or she reads the same text silently.

    • Response to Phonemic Cueing
    • Although the student fails to read a word orally, when given the first sound or syllable of that word, the student is able to read the word orally.
    Produces Semantically or Phonemically Related Substitutions When Reading
    • During oral reading the student produces words that are similar in meaning to the word in the text (semantic substitutions, calculator for computer); shares some of the same sounds as the word in the text (phonemic substitutions, discover for discomfort); or is a phonemic approximation of the target word (coefit for coefficient).
Word Finding Errors Displayed in Written Language

Students with Word Finding difficulties may also have difficulties developing written language. Their written narratives may be adequate in length but contain many errors that suggest problems in retrieving words. Other students may produce written narratives that are brief with sentence structure that is not syntactically complex. These difficulties in written language are highlighted below.

Narratives of Adequate Length, But Many Word Finding Errors

Student's sentences may contain many omissions:
  • Function words may be omitted (articles, prepositions, adverbs);
  • Pronouns may be omitted (Omission of "you" in the sentence "I will present reasons why should not smoke."); or
  • Nouns mays be omitted (Omission of "and gentlemen" in the sentence "Ladies of the jury.")
Student's sentences may contain target word substitutions:
  • In class Substitutions - For example "could" was substituted for "should" (auxiliary substitutions) in the sentence "These will be reasons why you could not smoke." Preposition Substitutions - For example, "to" was substituted for "through" in the sentence "I will take these lessons to the rest of my schooling."Noun Substitutions - For example, "sympathy" was substituted for "symphony" (phonemic substitution) in the sentence "I went to the sympathy."Verb Substitutions - For example, "have" was substituted for "develop" in the sentence "You can have a bad habit."Overly General Words/Target Words - For example, "stuff" was substituted for a "detail" in the sentence "We are going to put fish and plants and more stuff like that in our soda bottles."
  • Circumlocutions - For example, a description of carnival was substituted for the target word itself in the sentence "The character went to a place where there are a lot of rides."

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Student's sentences may contain word or phrase repetitions.
  • Repetition of the word ecosystems in the sentence "Ecosystems we are doing so far the ecosystems is really fun."
Student's sentences may contain noun, verb or phrase reformulations (revisions).
  • Revision of the phrase "slow up" in the sentence "It can slow up your slow down your whole body."
Student's sentences may contain inconsistent omission or use of morphological endings (ing, ed, er).
  • Omission of "ed" in the sentence "After they answered the phone they left the room and close the door behind them.")

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Narratives That Are Brief 

  • The number of sentences produced is low and thus, number of ideas presented are few.
  • Sentences are short and complex sentences are limited.
  • Noun Phrase Expansion is Limited- Students seldom use noun phrase expansion. For example, the student produces two simple sentences like "John is torn with guilt. He regrets what happened." instead of the complex sentence "John, torn with guilt, regrets what happened."
  • Verb Phrase Expansion is Limited- Students seldom use verb phrase expansion. For example, the student may write "John feels helpless because his friends have left." instead of the sentence "John feels helpless, having failed to convince his friends not to leave."
  • None or a limited number of complex or compound complex sentences such as embedded sentences or sentences containing a main clause + one or more additional coordinating, subordinating, complementing or relative clauses.