One of the biggest challenges for speech pathologists treating kids with language disorders is knowing how “normal” language development looks over the school-age years.
We have a lot of language developmental milestones charts out there, but most of them end around age 6.
After that, you’ll be hard pressed to find a neat little chart that shows you what “age-appropriate” language skills should look like when kids move from Kindergarten through high school.
And when you don’t know what skills are expected, it’s hard to tell what skills to work on and when; which only makes language therapy seem more complicated and confusing.
Thankfully, when it comes to tracking language development, we don’t have to track EVERY single language skill. It’s actually counterproductive to try, because language skills don’t work that way.
There isn’t a cut-and-dry linear progression with most of them across the school-age years.
It’s why trying to create a perfect “school-age language developmental milestones” chart will do more harm than good.
But here’s why this is good news:
You can actually narrow your focus substantially and make things MUCH easier for yourself by focusing on just a couple key skills.
Doing this will not only help you identify kids who have weak language skills beyond what is age-appropriate, but it will also help you know what skills to track and work on so you can make CONSISTENT, SUSTAINABLE progress in boosting language processing.
One of those skills we start with? SYNTAX
On the video Q & A below I’m going to share a key syntactic skill you can use to:
✅Tell which students are likely to struggle with OTHER language skills.
✅Boost your students’ high-level comprehension and expression (especially if they haven’t responded to comprehension strategy instruction.
✅Easily write language therapy goals that are both functional AND easy to track.
When you listen, you’ll also learn why you can’t find a school-age language developmental milestones chart, and what to use instead to focus language therapy.
Click here to check out the blog post I mentioned with the research review that outlined syntax development in the school age years.
For a more detailed breakdown and some examples of key syntactic structures that develop in the school-age years, be sure to check out this free guide.
This free guide is called The Ultimate Guide to Sentence Structure.
Inside you’ll learn exactly how to focus your language therapy. Including:
- The hidden culprit behind unexplained “processing problems” that’s often overlooked.
- The deceptively simple way to write language goals; so you’re not spending hours on paperwork (goal bank included).
- The 4 sentence types often behind comprehension and expression issues and why they’re so difficult.
- An easy-to-implement “low-prep” strategy proven to boost sentence structure, comprehension, and written language (conjunctions flashcards included).
